


Relentless

by notunbroken



Series: Redress [3]
Category: Major Crimes (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2020-01-20 18:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 48,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18530731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notunbroken/pseuds/notunbroken
Summary: After suffering a health setback, Sharon must balance her well-being against not only finding the truth of Neil Williams’ past, but also in untangling the mystery of a resurgent Philip Stroh.





	1. Standing Looking Backward

Once again hunched into a waiting room chair at Cedars-Sinai, Andy’s heart thumps in his chest.

In light mid-day traffic — and given a few liberties taken with speed limits and yellow lights — they’d made it from home to the hospital in twenty minutes. A flock of nurses shuffled Sharon away from him as soon as they got through the door, disappearing her back into the maze of hallways that make up the emergency department. They left him holding the bag, literally, along with a stack of forms he can’t believe he’s supposed to fill out again.

Now — almost an hour later — Andy can’t duck away from a pounding flow of reasons why the drive might not have been fast enough. A mocking argument runs through him, all the justifications he could’ve used to flip on the lights and siren in his Explorer, no matter how much Sharon would’ve complained. The trip could have rung in ten minutes quicker, even with her aiming dark glares and sharp comments at him over the console.

That’s if she could’ve mustered it. She was woozy, clammy and pale, leaned against the door panel like a rag doll, jostling with every bump and pothole in the road. Earlier, she’d been a shell of her normal self, confused and listless in bed, surrounded by snotty tissues. How long she’d kept herself there, God only knows.

Her form was so still, curled under the covers when Andy had first walked into the bedroom...

A wave of nausea joins the worry stomping on his gut. He should’ve gone home as soon as she didn’t pick up his first call this morning. Yeah, it would’ve pissed her off if she’d turned out to be fine, but at least he would’ve _known_. And she maybe would’ve figured out her lack of response was concerning him, maybe accepted she needed to answer her damned phone.

 _But she couldn_ ’ _t answer the phone_ , he remembers, _because she didn_ ’ _t even know where it was._

It’s indescribable, how unlike Sharon — his Sharon, the woman who triple-checks for her keys, phone, and wallet every time she walks out of the condo — it is for her to crawl into bed without a care and stay there for what looked like days. That, more than her physical state, leaves his throat tightening.

_It must be bad._

_It has to be really, really bad._

He could punch something. Better yet, some _one._ This was supposed to be over. After everything, Sharon should be in the clear. She doesn’t deserve this, not ever, not even when she’s hanging onto some vague sense of anger toward him.

In fact, Andy would take her hazy annoyance directed his way every day for the rest of his life, as long as it meant she was still with him.

When his phone sets to vibrating, his punching impulse doubles. The last thing he wants right now is to talk. To anyone other than Sharon, anyway, about anything other than what the hell she was thinking. He plans to abandon the call to voicemail, but the creep of guilt returns at the chance of one of the kids reaching out for an update.

Pawing through his discarded jacket, he finds the phone on its fourth and final ring. He scowls at the name on its screen, but swipes to answer.

“What?”

“Flynn, where the hell are you?” The greeting is a hiss, as if Provenza’s trying to stay quiet. “I thought you were just going home to—”

“I’m at Cedars,” he grits.

Silence stretches across the line for several seconds. “Please,” Provenza’s voice is strangely pleading and half-distant, like he’s ducked away from the receiver, “tell me that’s the name of some new overpriced brunch place.”

“No, you moron, it’s the fucking hospital!” This pulls a series of surprised and irritated stares from Andy’s fellow waiting room residents.

Rather than have an audience to the rest of his probably loud and profane side of the conversation, he strides down the too-familiar hallways and out into the parking lot. The bright, cloudless day feels like a slap in the face as Provenza’s sigh rustles across the line. “What happened?”

“When I got home, Sharon was—” Andy swallows against the memory of her lying stone-still under the covers, beats back the urge to yell, _I thought she was gone!_

Instead, he says, “She was completely out of it, burning up.” With panic pressing at his windpipe, crushing his voice into a croak, he forces his most distilled fear into the conversation. “She’s really sick. I’m worried it might be rejection.”

“Shit.” A fainter, rantier sound rises behind, what seems like Williams’ typical grouching in the background. “Yeah, yeah,” Provenza’s dropped the phone again, this time no doubt directing the smoothing words toward their boss. His voice returns in full force. “So you’ll be on leave for the rest of the day, I’m assuming.”

“Yeah. I’ll be back in...whenever.” Andy runs his hand over his hair. “I don’t even know.”

Williams’ voice reaches the line again, still too unclear to make out what he’s saying. But the sound is enough to send anger surging back into Andy’s chest. “You wanna just hand him the fucking phone? It’ll get this over quicker, and I have a few things—”

“Now that’s a damned stupid idea, and you know it.” Provenza grumbles. “Your wife will kick my ass if I let you get fired over this, and I fear her wrath _much_ more than I fear yours.”

Andy doesn’t have the words to tell him that Sharon isn’t in an ass-kicking place right now. Instead he says, “You know I’ll drop the job in a second, if I have to choose.”

“Yeah,” the answer carries on a sigh. “I know.”

As he faces the hospital, the rows of windows that’ll be his home for the foreseeable future, exhaustion saps the force from his voice. “Can you just...keep him off my back?”

“Of course, Flynn.” The assurance carries on a surprising, solid sincerity. “That _is_ my specialty, after all.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Provenza clears his throat. “And you’ll let us know what’s going on with Sharon, when you find out?”

 _He_ ’ _ll never admit he’s grown a soft spot for her._ “Yeah. I’ll keep you posted.”

Andy trudges back inside, fending off offers of delivered food and Patrice’s company. He doesn’t bother explaining the truth, which is that his attention spans wide enough to hold one person, at the moment, and his capacity for calm is even narrower. As if to demonstrate the first point, his return to the waiting room finds the duffel he’d stuffed together at home mocking him from below his claimed chair. He inwardly curses himself for leaving the bag — holding, in part, Sharon’s wallet and her charging phone — unattended. Given the way he left, he’s lucky the bomb squad isn’t surrounding it, with it having been See-Something-Say-Somethinged.

A quick inventory back at his seat finds their stuff untouched. But his check of the phone’s battery level also shows a new email alert on the display. As he taps Sharon’s PIN onto the screen, Andy steels himself for some bill notification or calendar update he’ll have to remember to tackle in the next few days.

Instead, he finds a surprise.

 _Commander_ , the message begins, and despite Andy’s distant sense telling him to drop it, that he has no right to read an email addressed to Sharon, he scrolls onward.

_I understand your concern over Neil Williams. With that in mind, you should recognize why most of us have chosen to put him in the past, out of regard for our careers and our families. I ask that you not contact me again about this matter._

The signature block following the message says it’s from a ‘Lieutenant A. Masuki, Pacific Division.’ Against the continued twinge of principle, he pulls the screen further down, to Sharon’s first email and the follow-up that had prompted Masuki’s response. She’d spelled out her long IA career and skimmed over some of the dirt she’s swept up on Williams so far, then asked for any specifics the Lieutenant might be able to pass along.

Andy sets the message to appear unread before dropping the phone back into the bag. This Masuki… the information Sharon already has on Williams… it’s a mess reaching deeper than he expected. It’s the kind of stress her retirement was meant to end.

And under the circumstances, one question blares over the rest:

 _Is exposing Williams worth_ this _?_

When a familiar face appears in a doorway across the room, Andy settles on a certain answer: _No_. He doubles down at the unfamiliar line etched between Alonzo’s brows as he approaches. _Nothing is worth this._

“Mr. Flynn, how’re you doing out here?”

“That depends on what you’re about to tell me.”

He offers a slow nod. “You should be fine, then.” With an arm extended to the door he’d just passed through, he says, “C’mon, Sharon is all settled in a room.”

Andy shoulders the bag as he stands. “So she’s okay, then?”

The question earns him a sidelong look as they step into the hall. “Not exactly.” He draws to a stop at a bank of elevators, pressing the upward arrow. “If she was _okay_ you wouldn’t have brought her here. We’ve got her on an IV for dehydration and a cough suppressant, for starters.” An arriving elevator leaves him pausing, then picking up with a jab of the “3” button inside. “The ibuprofen seems to be helping with the fever.”

“You think it’s a cold?”

“Well,” Alonzo sighs, “it probably _started_ as a cold. But in anyone with a curbed immune system, like Sharon’s, a simple cold can run crazy. We haven’t nailed down the specifics quite yet, but we’ll get it under control.”

Andy’s vision goes tunnel-like at the idea of ‘it started as a cold.’ All of this started with a cold, last October. A cold is what ended up attacking Sharon’s original heart, left it battered to the point of failure, brought her to the brink of death.

As the elevator dings onto the third floor, Alonzo squeezes his shoulder, breaking him out of his downward spiraling thoughts. “For now, she’s stable and resting.” He sets off down the rightward hallway. “Her temp is dropping, and we’ll keep a close eye on her to make sure she keeps getting better.”

“Of course.”

They draw to a stop outside a nondescript room in an unfamiliar corridor. “We can’t have Sharon on the transplant ward with whatever it is she’s battling,” Alonzo explains, as he nods to the door. “But we got her as close as we could. Her doctors and nurses will know to keep me up-to-date on her condition.”

“Thanks Alonzo.” Andy shakes the nurse’s hand. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

“Oh,” he smirks as he sets to backing down the hallway, “count on it.”

From the over-bright hall, Sharon’s assigned space is mostly dark. The nagging, antiseptic stink of the hospital crawls into Andy’s nose, doing nothing to ease the tension across his shoulders as he steps through the door. The tight room is half-filled with cryptic machines, the stiff, wide bed, a chair and some pillows in a show of institutional attempts toward comfort.

Sharon is out cold, curled into a delicate coil with her IVed hand draped over her hip. The sight is all too familiar, stirring up the worst kind of nostalgia. Andy spent day after day in rooms like this, since December, nursing an optimism he thought he’d perfected. Now, as he settles into his designated spot, he isn’t sure he can raise it up again. In its place, he mutters the one question spinning through him:

“How the hell’d we end up back here?”


	2. I'll be an Army

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frustrations boil over, leaving room for a new perspective.

A throbbing neckache slashes through Sharon’s sleep, leaving her blinking into the half-dark of an unfamiliar room.

The tight pain in her chest follows seconds later, towing context with it. _You’re at the hospital. You’re sick again. Nothing is normal._ A long, rumbly breath from the corner reinforces this last truth, Andy dozing half-propped in a small recliner.

Rearranging to take pressure from her neck is a slow, achy ordeal. Sleep doesn’t follow. Sharon’s body thinks it’s morning; whether it is or not is both irrelevant and beyond her grasp. She has no watch, no phone. Here, there’s no squat alarm clock blaring red numbers from the other side of the bed. The blue-hued light sneaking around the curtains does nothing to help her guess. Her only other options for knowing involve getting up, waking Andy, so she goes without.

The prospect of lying here, for God only knows how long, waiting for the pokes and prods to start, leaves a deep unease twisting along her spine. What she wants more than the time is a good, old-fashioned, self-indulgent crying jag, the kind she so rarely allows for herself. She wants this without having a conversation about it afterward, without having it become a magnet for pity.

The close confines of the hospital suite won’t allow that. Instead, Sharon stares upward, scrabbling for any threads of the giddy gratitude she felt on her last release from this place. She tallies blessings in her life as the light spreading from the window goes orange with the rising sun. The count remains inexcusably low as her attention drifts, again and again, toward her present discomfort.

The click-swish of the door opening from the hallway sends her eyes dropping closed. She’s not ready for conversation, especially not on the topic of her continued frailty. The nurse — if she has to guess — moves on near-silent steps, with the impact of pen on clipboarded paper the most noticeable sound in her presence.

At least until the creak and rustle of movement in the corner leaves the woman offering a quiet, “Good morning.”

“Um, is the doctor gonna be in this morning?” Andy’s less-than-generous greeting is partially muffled, probably behind his hands rubbing at his face.

“Yes,” another series of soft ballpoint strikes, “maybe in twenty minutes or so?”

“Great, thank you.”

“I’m Elena, by the way.” To her credit, she sounds more amused than anything, “I’ll be in and out this morning.”

“Andy.”

A smirk works its way into her voice as she moves away from the bed. “There’s a coffee stand at this end of this wing. Seems like you might need it.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard since I got here.”

Elena’s response is half-lost around the corner, something about hoping to fix that soon. The echo of hallway noise goes silent behind her. Andy sighs, clicks the recliner upright. Within a few seconds, a nearer door — the bathroom, Sharon guesses — snaps closed. But it isn’t long before his footsteps lead back to her side.

“You can give up the con.” His tone remains low, but laced with dark humor. “I saw you glaring at the ceiling before.”

Sharon sighs before opening her eyes. “Who’s conning whom, then?” Her voice is weaker than she’d prefer, still struggling to leave her throat. At least her glasses are within arms’ reach, on the bedside table. She slides them on, gaining an inch of normalcy.

Andy lifts a shoulder, angles toward the window. Lit from the side, the stubble on his cheek and the wrinkles in his shirt draw her attention. “Figured you weren’t interested in talking, yet.”

There’s little she can say to that. Instead, she pulls herself to sitting, ignoring his outstretched hand. While she sends the top of the bed motoring to an incline, she asks, “May I have my phone, please?”

“Yeah, sure.” As he turns to rummage through the bag he packed yesterday, he explains, “I’ve been in touch with Ricky and Emily, I think I managed to talk them out of jumping on flights out here.”

Even as her face warms over the idea of him communicating with them in her stead, she says, “Thank you.”

“Rusty is home, safe and sound, he’s coming over later today.” Andy presses the requested device into her palm.

Sharon spares enough attention from entering her PIN to ask, “How was his trip?”

A humorless laugh kicks off his response as he reaches to open the blinds. “We didn’t get into that.”

The secondary meaning, that they could only bear to discuss her, leaves Sharon frowning, but she lets it float away. For now, anyway. If Rusty earns a scholarship to Berkeley, it will drive a huge decision in his life, potentially marking a turning point. It could change everything for him.

There are bigger things than _this_.

She reviews her texts, finding now days-old unread messages from Andy and Rusty, conveying their worry over her lack of response. Below those, the line bearing Cath’s name is bolded. She’d texted on Wednesday night, asking about going to lunch today.

Sharon’s eyes prickle as she sends a reply. _Sorry, just got this. Can’t do lunch. Back at Cedars._

As she cleans out the other old messages, she feels Andy’s stare, heavy on her head. She rolls tension from her shoulders, dulls the edge trying to sneak into her voice when she asks, “What?”

“How are you feeling?”

A glance in his direction finds his brows knitted low. She can’t bring herself to offer him a reassuring grin, but she says, “I’m better.”

His skeptical, “Yeah?” makes her glad for her phone buzzing against her thigh.

A new message from Cath drops onto its screen. _What’s going on?_

 _I had a high fever yesterday, other than that not sure_ , she replies. _The doctor should be here soon with more info._

“Sharon.”

She tries to swallow past the lump lodged at the base of her throat. The effort leaves her releasing a shaky exhale as she places her phone face down on the table. “Really, I feel much clearer, not so achy, my cough is gone…”

With her descriptions trailing off, Andy’s chin dips into a long nod. “Yeah, the nurses loaded you up with all sorts of good stuff in that IV.”

Her eyes trace over the needle taped into the back of her hand. The stiffness in his explanation tells her that some part of this treatment has him irked. Even with yesterday’s fog lifted, Sharon still isn’t sure she can find the exact source. Instead, she hedges. “Right.”

A hard breath rushes from his mouth. “Probably could’ve done it with pills if you came in earlier. ”

 _There it is_.

“Probably,” she concedes.

“Maybe if—”

Whatever he’s going to say, he drops it when the suite’s door pushes open. “Sorry!” Elena’s voice is somewhere between talk and whisper. “We’re here a little early.”

“Ah,” Andy stands, smoothing his palms along his slacks as he goes. “No problem, we were just chatting.”

Sharon manages to repress a sarcastic snort as a small young woman in lilac scrubs rounds the corner. “Good!” On a bright smile, she asks, “How are you feeling this morning, Sharon?”

“Much better, thank you.”

“So, I’m Elena, I’ll be on the floor until this afternoon.” Her soft brown eyes crinkle into a smile. “I chatted with Alonzo from upstairs. He gave me a little background on your last stay with us, told me to keep an eye on your police friends.”

Andy beats her to a dry response. “Good luck with that.”

“Oh,” Elena answers on a wry grin, “I have my skills when it comes to sneaky visitors.” Her attention flips to the bedside monitors. “Anyway, Doctor Planche should be right behind me, and we’ll get to the bottom of what’s messing with you, okay?”

A nod stands as Sharon’s answer. It isn’t as if anyone would say ‘no’ to that. And besides, the appearance of a man wearing a white coat nixes the small talk.

The doctor, with his sculpted blond hair and beach-perfect tan, nudges Sharon nearer to the edge she’s been inching toward all morning. Following an examination that includes an icy stethoscope and several rib-splitting deep breaths, he perches on the table positioned near the end of her bed.

“Based on what I’m seeing, you’re dealing with pneumonia. Probably bacterial, but since you’re considered high-risk and immunocompromised, we’re going to do a blood test and sputum culture to make sure it isn’t fungal or viral.”

Sharon’s nose wrinkles reflexively at the idea of providing a sample of the gunk she’s been coughing up for days. Doctor Planche must receive this reaction often, given the way he chuckles. “Don’t worry,” he says, “we’ve all seen enough mucus that it doesn’t even register anymore.”

Andy clears his throat. “And in the meantime?”

“In the meantime...” the doctor trails off as he scans her chart. To Sharon’s small delight, he continues addressing her directly. “Your temp has dropped to 100, which is at least workable. That tells us the most immediate threat has passed. We’ve slotted you in for a x-ray at 8:30, and once we know what we’re dealing with, we’ll get you on the appropriate treatment.” He flashes his tile-white teeth. “Sound good?”

“It does.” She manages to lift one corner of her mouth. “Thank you.”

As Elena and Planche disappear toward the hall, Sharon pulls several deep, painful breaths to even out the emotion threatening to boil out of her. Stuck at Cedars again, for who knows how long. Stuck depending on others for what she should be able to handle herself.

Just when things were getting back to normal, her body has brought her to a screeching halt.

Yesterday’s teary remorse has disappeared. Her return to patient status brings out her most irrational, prickly side. Faced with the consequence of another lengthy hospital stay, she knows she overshot, pushed herself too hard, kept her condition to herself too long. But now she’ll have to listen to God and everyone explain it to her, as if she doesn’t understand she made a mistake.

Andy is, predictably, first in line. He picks up where he left off, arms knotted over his chest. “Pneumonia.” A sigh chuffs past his lips. “I mean…that’s bad.”

With her attention fixed on the twist of her fingers in the soft worn sheet over her lap, she says, “It’s fine,” with a clear and careful enunciation.

“No, I’ve read all those,” he pauses, loses a bit more of his cool when he continues with, “booklet whatevers that Alonzo gave us. It’s _serious_.” When she doesn’t answer, he adds, “Sharon, I feel like I just got you back, and now…”

She isn’t in the mood to hear him.

“I might be your wife, but I don’t belong to you, Andy.”

The words cross a line. She knows this as soon as they’ve left her mouth. It becomes doubly clear when he recoils as if she’s slapped him.

In an instant, he fires back. “Well, excuse me for giving a shit.”

It takes every once of control within her not to respond in kind. She closes her eyes, winces through a long inhale. “You know what this is like. Feeling like everything you could possibly do is limited, beyond your control…” She meets his stare. “Only this is the rest of my _life_ , now.”

“You think it isn’t the rest of my life, too? You think I’m riding a desk for fun?”

“That’s just work, though—”

“ _Just_ work?” he grits.

“ — and at least you can still be there.”

He jabs his hand in her direction. “You’re the one who up and retired without even mentioning it beforehand.”

“Was I supposed to ask your permission?”

“No! But you could’ve waited, gotten some perspective on the whole thing instead of just dropping out and leaving us with...”

Sharon’s eyes widen at the idea he’s left unspoken. She fills in his blank. “So you’re blaming me for Williams, now?”

 _In anger, truth._ That’s been Andy’s way forever. She’s had a sinking feeling about this, for a while, that every time he comes home cursing the Captain’s name, he’s cursing her a little, too.

Here, though, he shakes his head, even as his eyes lift to the ceiling. “No. I’m not.”

“Don’t lie to me, Andy.”

Now, his glare drops to her. His voice cuts. “ _I’m_ not lying to _you_.”

The emphasis doesn’t pass her by. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means hiding something like this,” he gestures toward her spot in bed, “is as good as lying—”

“It’s not.”

“— especially when your downside is a trip to the hospital, but the actual downside is you _dying_!” He runs his hand back through his hair. “I don’t know how the fuck I can get you to take this seriously!”

In contrast to his fire, she keeps her voice flat as a board. “That’s not your problem.”

“It isn’t?” He casts his arms wide, indicating their surroundings. “Because it seems, to me, like maybe it needs to be _someone’s_ problem. It sure as hell doesn’t seem to be yours.”

“I’m a grown woman. I don’t need you to take care of me.”

“Uh-huh.” His eyes narrow. “So you keep reminding me. And, yet, here we are.”

This statement of reality stings more than anything else he could say. Over her burning cheeks, Sharon crosses her arms and pulls her attention to the beautiful day playing out beyond her reach. “I don’t want to fight with you about this.”

“Neither do I.” His voice remains primed, waiting for an opening.

“You still will, though.”

“Yeah? So will you.”

They’re stuck in this hardening cement of an impasse when a knock echoes off the metal doorframe.

“Hello?” Cath appears, carrying a bouquet of daisies. “Oh! Hi Andy.” At his stiff, answering nod, she says, “I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

“Not at all,” Sharon answers, aiming her full attention to her friend. “I’m just waiting for an x-ray.”

“Wow,” she settles the flowers on the table Planche had recently vacated. “What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, really, just—”

“It’s pneumonia,” Andy grumbles.

“Oh my. That’s not great.” Cath’s eyes travels between them, no doubt measuring the tension she’s trudged into. After a moment of frigid silence, she says, “In that case, I’m sure you’ve both had a long couple of days. Sharon, how about I go with you for your x-ray?”

“I think that’s a good idea.”

“Yeah,” Andy mutters, “whatever.” To no one in particular, he says, “I’m gonna go get some coffee.”

After watching his path across the room and out of sight, Sharon stretches on a grin she hopes is convincing. “Sorry about that. And thank you for the flowers, they’re lovely.”

“I really do hope it’s not a problem I dropped by.” She lifts a hand toward the door. “I was already on my way in, to see a few people upstairs—”

“No, it’s fine, really. We can use a minute, I think.”

Elena pushes a wheelchair into the room. “Oh, Sister Catherine! I didn’t know you’d be here today.”

“Ah, technically I’m upstairs. I stopped by to check in with Sharon, and we decided I’d take her down to radiology, if that’s okay.”

“Sure. You know the way, right?”

Cath answers on a chuckle, “Too well, believe me.”

It’s likely this familiarity with hospital settings that keeps her from hovering as Sharon lurches out of bed, hobbles into the bathroom, and arranges herself in the required wheelchair. In fact, she waits until they’re in a downward elevator before speaking again.

“So, is everything okay?” At Sharon’s dry snort of an answer, she adds, “It’s a stressful time, no doubt.”

“I have a stress-inducing husband.”

“Is that really true?”

Sharon forgets, sometimes, that she’s only known Cath a few months. That puts her in a unique position among her close friends, who otherwise know all too well the long and winding path of her relationship with Andy. “As someone who was his boss for more than five years: Yes.” She doesn’t even know how to start explaining the rest.

“I see.” At the first floor, Cath guides the chair from the elevator and around a corner, pausing only for an automatic door pitching inward. “And how does all of that measure up against this morning?”

The remnants of her argument with Andy flare into her chest. “Well, back when I outranked him he didn’t expect me to call him every time I sneezed, so it’s hard to tell.”

“Ah, so he’s smothering?”

“In a sense.”

“He brought you here?”

“Yes.”

In the radiology waiting room, Cath draws to a stop near a magazine-strewn end table. She perches on a chair at Sharon’s side, taking a long look around the space. “It’s a good thing, I’d say.”

“I—” She shakes her head, searching for her argument. “Yes, he was right to bring me here. I just don’t need him _lecturing_ me about deciding to rest at home instead of calling for his help.”

Cath’s eyes flicker something dangerous. “‘Your family loves you the way you love them,’ remember?” She offers a thoughtful hum at Sharon’s downward glance. “Maybe it’d be helpful to consider, for a second, about the way you would feel, if Andy saw fit to keep an illness secret from you—”

“Oh,” Sharon bites, lifting her lip, half-amused and half-irritated by the symmetrical irony of her request. “You mean the same Andy who had a heart attack in our squad room a year and a half ago, after spending several days not telling me about the upper-arm pain and lightheadedness he’d been having?”

“Uh-huh, that’s your husband.” Cath nods. “And would you say you’re still upset about that situation?” With a lowered chin and flattened lips, Sharon fixes her with a look that only leads to her laughing. “Goodness, I guess that’s a ‘yes.’”

She eases away the expression with a roll of her eyes. “Actually, on a daily basis, no. I’m not angry about it anymore. But today? With him trying to guilt me into God-knows-what? Yes, I’m a little annoyed.”

“Mm, so this is about comeuppance, then? A matter of who did what first?” When Sharon doesn’t answer, Cath continues, “Because I think you’re close to a deeper understanding, here.” Her brow creases with focus. “Why were you angry, after his heart attack?”

“Because,” Sharon grits, before stopping to consider the meat of her answer.

_Because…_

The sudden strike of his collapse, his back careening into the wall; the way her own heart — now, of course, replaced — seemed to lodge itself between her collarbones, pattering an impossible rhythm into her throat as he slid to the floor; the breaths he struggled to suck in; his hands, unfamiliar in their cool clamminess, layered around hers, over his chest; worst of all, the panic in his wide stare, glued to hers, and the realization that Andy Flynn — with his endless supply of cool irreverence and corresponding lack of sense — was scared.

His fear, the truth of it, had leapt into her imagination, dropped to her stomach, and remained clutched there for hours, through the speeding ambulance with his grip loosening around hers, her wholly inadequate whispered reassurances, the hospital that wouldn’t allow her near him, the nurses playing mum, the rest of the squad watching her like she was a wounded animal, the scans and tests and, finally, the return of Andy’s typical defense mechanism: hostility. Sharon, though one of the few people not centered in his crosshairs, found this to be her breaking point. His sourness pushed her into delivering an insomnia-fueled rant that ended with her sobbing into his shoulder.

Now, she swallows the memories and keeps her voice level when she admits, “Because I was afraid he’d die, and if he’d just told me he was in pain, I’d have gotten him to a doctor before any of it happened.”

Cath lets those words hang in the air for a moment. When she speaks again, her voice has returned to its signature softness. “Vulnerability is never fun. But it’s necessary in our most essential relationships.” She clears her throat. “And that goes double when you’re dealing with something like a life-threatening medical condition.”

With a series of blinks aimed toward the ceiling, draining the water from her eyes, Sharon says, “I know I should be better about admitting when I need help. But you have to understand how…just incredibly strange this is for me. I don’t even recognize my own body anymore. I don’t recognize my _life_.” She extends her arm to the world beyond the plate glass windows down the hall, which now feels unreachable. “I used to get as few as twelve hours of sleep in a work week, when my squad was running on a case. We’d survive on strong coffee and cold pizza and crash on the weekends.”

Cath’s eyes widen. With a nod in the direction of Sharon’s fluid-filled lungs, she adds, “And you wonder how you ended up here?”

“I don’t think—”

She holds up a silencing hand. “It isn’t my style to take the hard tack, but…” She draws a deep breath, squares her shoulders with a firmness Sharon didn’t realize she possesses. “You need to wake up. You wouldn’t _have_ a life, now, if it wasn’t for those changes to your body.” After a pause, she lifts a brow and aims a point as her voice drops. “And you won’t have a life for much longer if you don’t accept that truth now.” She nods to the side, where a clipboard-bearing staff member has appeared. “Something to think about while they measure the damage.”

Think she does, picking over her two early morning conversations as technicians mold her into place for the x-ray and bonus CT scan. Her words of frustration seem so callous now, so unnecessary. She could’ve done better. This wasn’t the time to make her aggravation known.

Back on the third floor, Sharon pushes into her room while Cath stops off at the nurses’ station. The form she finds in the bedside chair isn’t the one she expects.

“Lieutenant?”

Provenza turns, crossword in hand. “Ah, Commander. So you didn’t run off, after all.” He lifts his chin in her direction. “Everything okay?”

Sharon nods at his question before skipping to her own. “Is Andy around?”

“I sent him home.” He crooks a thumb toward the hallway, oblivious to how her stomach clenches at his answer. “Figured it was better than him sulking in the waiting room, building up to another asshole moment.”

Sharon’s answering grin is more of a grimace. “I’m afraid I was the asshole this time, actually.”

“Oh,” his eyes widen. “Well, then, better I keep _you_ away from _him_ , I guess.” This makes the tilt of her lips more genuine. He pats her shoulder. “It’ll blow over.”

Footsteps down the hall redirect their attention. “These ladies, my goodness—” Cath freezes as she notices the room’s other occupant. “Oh, hello!”

Sharon waves a hand between her guests. “Lieutenant Louie Provenza, this is Sister Catherine Cleary, my transplant buddy.” To Cath, she explains, “The Lieutenant was my second-in-command in my last division. He’s also Andy’s partner.”

“Yeah, _that’s_ my claim to fame.” Despite that good-natured grumble, he extends his hand to Cath with a smile. “Always a pleasure to meet a friend of the Commander’s.”

“Likewise.” Cath shoots Sharon a sly, lifted-brow grin, no doubt thanks to the ranks flying. “Well, I need to get up to the transplant ward. You’ll call if you need anything?”

“Sure,” Sharon answers on a nod.

Cath bends to eye level, “I’m serious,” and trades a look with Provenza before she turns to leave.

After she’s gone, he says, “Why am I not surprised to find you rubbing elbows with a nun?”

Sharon draws a soothing circle at her temple. “Because not much of anything surprises you.”

“Good point,” he grunts, balancing his puzzle and pen in his lap. “Okay, I’ve been tasked with sending an update to your husband.”

Exhaustion seeps into her voice. “You’re taking orders from Andy, now?”

“Only under the most dire circumstances.” With his phone held out, he goes serious. “You scared him, you know?”

Why it’s this, of all things, that leaves her tears overflowing, she can’t understand. “I know.” Without as much of a blink of hesitation, the Lieutenant reaches for a tissue, offers it to her. He waits, attention fixed out the window, as she gathers herself. “You can tell him I had my x-ray, and that they added a CT scan as a precaution. And now…” Weariness presses on her bones as she climbs out of the chair. “Now I’m going to rest.”


	3. Put Out the Smoke in Your Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During a visit home, Andy meets a new face and learns someone's been looking for him.

Andy has drained two cups of halfway decent hospital coffee by the time Provenza stalks down the hall with some of the good stuff.

“I would’ve brought one for the Commander, but I figured—” His eyes narrow as he draws to a stop in the waiting room, where the items arranged within Andy’s arm reach show he’s settled in for a stay: a paperback parted face-down on the armrest, his phone and sweatshirt piled on the next chair, feet balanced on the lower level of the coffee table, SportsCenter on the TV in the corner. “What’s wrong, why are you out here?”

There are several possible answers to that question, but Andy settles for the one that’ll reassure him. He reaches for the drink Provenza offers. “She’s down getting an x-ray. The doc thinks she’s got pneumonia, they just need to figure out how bad it is.”

His expression relaxes. “Better than rejection.”

This bit of perspective, a reminder of his deepest fear from yesterday, raises Andy’s mood by an inch. “Way, way better, yeah.”

“Still,” Provenza lifts his cup, “why aren’t you with her?” Though Andy tries to hide his rolling eyes with a sip of coffee, his partner picks up on it. His voice darkens. “What’d you do?”

“What makes you think it was _me_?”

“Because I know you.” On a slow nod, he adds, “And I know what being a husband is like.”

“Yeah, I’d say that’s your area of expertise,” Andy mutters.

“So what if it is?” Even with this little sidebar, his expecting stare says Provenza isn’t dropping the original question.

“I just…” Andy shakes his head. “I was _so_ worried about her. I really thought she was on the verge, again…” He swallows past the idea of what, exactly, she’d been on the verge of. “And with pneumonia and a hundred-plus fever, she pretty much was. But she can’t see that.” He lifts a hand toward her empty room. “And God _forbid_ I try to point it out to her.”

“Oh, so you mean you’re frustrated because your significant other is being stubborn and not taking her health issues seriously?” He aims a sarcastic squint down the hall. “Gee, where have I heard _that_ before?” With a chuckle at his own joke, he adds, “The two of you really _do_ deserve each other.”

“Right,” Andy grumbles. “Hilarious.”

“Consider it karma, maybe.” Provenza claps him on the arm. “You’ll both be fine with a little cooling off.”

“Yeah, I know.”

A well-worn silence settles over them at this plain truth. As annoyed as he is with Sharon right now, as much as he thinks she needs to get her head out of her ass on this front, it doesn’t change that he wants her back home and healthy. He’d just prefer it to be with a little less yelling and a little more of her usual practicality.

After the Dodgers’ highlights cycle through on ESPN, Provenza clears his throat. “Why don’t you let me sit here for a while? Go,” he flicks his hand toward the door with a grimace, “do something that’ll keep your wife from wanting to boot you into next week.”

Andy checks his watch. It’s nearly nine. “Isn’t Williams gonna be looking for you?”

Provenza’s already plopped into a chair, reaching for an abandoned _Times_ on the coffee table. “He thinks I’m out canvassing for witnesses.”

“And what happens when he figures out you aren’t doing that?”

He scowls. “Do you want cover, or not?”

Andy pulls another mouthful of coffee as he stares toward Sharon’s empty room. She’s stable, for now. That’s the most important thing. He’s not about to wade back into their earlier conversation, and he isn’t going to force his silent presence on her. Might as well do something useful.

“Okay, yeah. I’ll head home for a while.” He stands, wincing as his tailbone screams over the hard seat he’s been folded into. “She’s in 332, right over here,” he points toward the door, “and should be back any minute, now.”

“Got it.”

Andy pauses in gathering his stuff. “Uh, her doctor’s name is Planche. He’s a Ken-doll-looking guy. If you see him—”

“I’ll go in and try to get Sharon to spill, then let you know what I find out.” He barely looks up from folding the paper’s crossword into a manageable square. “Get out of here, Flynn.”

Open windows and a cranked stereo do a surprisingly decent job of clearing his head on the eastward drive. It’s early enough for the sun to be a pleasant warmth through the windshield, throwing off a golden light that no doubt matches LA to the city imagined by the dreamers and strivers who flock here. To Andy, though, the hour marks the earliest respectable point to reach out to families, acquaintances, local banks and stores; to pull at the first threads that could untangle the knot of an overnight murder. Given Provenza’s comment about canvassing, that’s probably what the rest of the squad is doing this morning.

Instead, Andy’s pulling into the garage at home, parking in the tandem spot behind Sharon’s car. He’s stopping at the mailroom, freeing a pile of envelopes and sales fliers and at least one magazine from their overstuffed box. Just off the elevator upstairs, his phone dings with an incoming text from Provenza.

_They decided to do a CAT scan, too. Only a precaution. She_ ’ _s resting now._

Sure, a “precaution,” probably brought on by a check of their insurance coverage. Still, Andy taps out a response thanking him for the update, sparing half a thought to how hard he’d had to pry to get it. With his eyes focused downward, he’s nearly to the front door when an unfamiliar voice snags his attention.

“Hi there!” He looks up to find a young woman hanging into the hall from the next unit over. She wiggles her fingers in a wave. “I think I’m your new neighbor.”

_Neighbor_? The word leaves Andy frowning, looking at the surrounding closed doors.

It’s a nice enough place, but Sharon’s condo tower has never been much of a neighborly setup. Outside of the HOA, which neither of them have had time for, the building’s camaraderie consists mostly of exchanging mis-delivered mail. With a glance between the woman’s face — tanned skin, full makeup, very curly blonde hair — and the number on her door, it takes a moment for him to piece together who he should expect to see there instead. “Ah, so you booted Mr. Siska, huh?”

“Well,” she laughs, “I dunno about that.” With an outstretched hand, she says, “Melanie Bonnar.”

“Andy Flynn.”

Her eyes narrow into a mischievous grin. “A-ha, I’ve heard about you.”

“Oh boy.”

“No, no, don’t worry.” She waves off his concern. “Good things.”

“Don’t know where you would’ve heard those, but thanks.”

Melanie meets this with a tinkling laugh. “Well, I’m sorry to ambush you in the hall. I knocked earlier, but I wasn’t sure whether there was anyone home…”

“Oh, yeah.” Andy jangles his keys in his sweatshirt pocket. “I’ve been at the hospital with my wife—”

“Oh my God.” She brings her palm to her chest. “I’m so sorry!”

He holds up his key-bearing hand. “Don’t worry about it. She’s gonna be fine.” On a step toward his door, he adds, “Anyway, her son should be here, but he spends a lot of time with his headphones on, so…”

“Might not have heard the knock. Totally get it.” She grins, backing into her doorway. “Okay, well, I just wanted to say ‘hi,’ make sure you’re not surprised to see a strange face around.”

“Thanks.” At the deadbolt clicking open, he offers a last, “nice to meet you,” before stepping inside.

Like a meerkat, Rusty’s head pops into view from the other side of the couch. As he rolls off the cushions and rounds the corner, Andy braces for an interrogation.

“Hey kid.” He crooks his thumb toward the door. “Did someone knock this morning?”

“Yeah, I dunno, it was some lady.” His eyes widen on an impatient nod. “How’s Mom?”

There are, again, too many responses for this question. Andy releases a long breath before saying, “She’s better.”

“Like, better-better? Coming-home-better? Because I was gonna go sit with her for a while, but…”

“She’s probably not coming home today.” Andy drops his attention to the mail. “But as far as visiting, she’d probably rather see you than me, at this point.”

Rusty’s frown goes deep. “What do you mean?”

“We’re having a…” He pauses, looking up from the stack of envelopes as he weighs how to toe the line between honesty and shit-stirring. “Let’s say, a fundamental disagreement over how serious this is.”

“ _Is_ it serious? Because I was gonna wait to go over there—”

He holds up a hand. “No need to rush. She just had some tests, she’s resting now.”

“Okay,” Rusty stretches the word into a question. “So they don’t know what’s going on yet?”

“The doc said it’s probably bacterial pneumonia, but they’ll know for sure once they get the full workup done.”

“Pneumonia,” he repeats. “Isn’t that something Alonzo said could be really bad?”

“He did. But I saw him yesterday, and he said they’ll get it under control.” Andy glances up to find Rusty wearing a far-off frown, staring out at the hills. “Really, kid, she’s gonna be fine.” He crosses the room, slaps the important mail onto the desk. “Now that she’s at the hospital, anyway.”

Maybe this last part comes out harder than he expected, given the way Rusty’s attention flips to it. “Is that it? Your ‘fundamental disagreement?’”

Andy can’t hold back a dry, exhaled laugh at his eye — or ear — for detail. “You’re sure you don’t wanna be a cop?”

The answer comes with a scrunched nose, “Positive,” and then a lifted chin. “That _is_ it, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Well,” Rusty’s brow furrows. “Mom hates being in the hospital.”

“That’s part of it, I know,” Andy rubs at his neck, “but that doesn’t change that she didn’t tell anyone that she was lying around here for a couple days, burning up and getting sicker.” Met with an open-mouthed stare from Rusty, he adds, “We had an argument, it’s not a big deal.”

“If you say so.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easy.” He taps Rusty’s shoulder as he passes, headed for the kitchen. “Neither is Sharon.”

“Good to know.”

Andy crouches to pull a skillet from the corner cupboard. “You hungry?”

“Yeah, I could eat.” Rusty slides onto a stool at the peninsula. He settles into a thoughtful quiet while Andy arranges the makings of egg sandwiches. It isn’t until the toaster clicks on that he says, “So…” and heaves a sigh. “I got a text from Gus.”

_Oh boy._ “That guy has some sense of timing.”

“That he does.” Rusty taps the edge of his phone on the countertop. “I’m gonna tell him I can’t deal with his…” he traces a circle with his hand, “whole _thing_ right now.”

With his attention focused on whisking, Andy figures the kid won’t notice his frowning response to this dodge in progress. He’s wrong.

“What?”

“Look,” Andy sighs. “As much as I hate to think about it, troubles with Sharon’s heart are probably gonna flare up every now and then. It’s just the nature of the whole transplant thing.” He pours the eggs into the heated skillet. “And I know she wouldn’t want you putting off your life because of her health problems.”

“I’m not _putting it off_ , I just can’t handle this _and_ Gus at the same time.”

Andy’s search for a spatula provides a good reason for a pause. But Rusty’s denial raises an issue they’re better off discussing head-on. While he pushes the scramble’s cooked edges toward the raw mass at the center of the pan, he tries to explain.

“If you want to set the Gus thing aside for a while, that’s fine. You should let him know what going on. But consider this situation with your mom as the new normal. And beyond hanging out at the hospital for a while, there’s nothing for you to handle.” To fend off any argument on this front, he turns to say, “We’ve got this under control, okay?”

Rusty nods, but his widened eyes and pursed lips point toward his disagreement.

Now it’s Andy’s turn to ask, “What?”

“Um, speaking of ‘under control,’ Captain Williams came here looking for you earlier.”

He stares to the ceiling before returning to his eggs. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Obviously I told him you were at Cedars, but he seemed kinda…”

“Pissy?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s a good way to put it.” A glance finds Rusty’s mouth twisting into a sly grin. “So, does the squad miss Mom and all her rules yet?”

“You have no idea.” After dividing four slices of toast between two plates, he says, “I should probably give him a call, see what he wants.”

“Uh, can he, like, fire you?”

“You sound like Sharon.” The skeptical, assured brow he lifts makes him _look_ like her, too, but Andy’s not about to say that. “No, he can’t just up and fire me.” He splits his attention between describing the dismissal process and folding mozzarella into the eggs. “He has to be able to prove he has cause, and if he managed that — which he _can_ ’ _t_ , by the way — he’d have to write up a specific violations that I’d have to improve on…” He rolls his hand in the air. “Blah blah, it’s a whole thing.”

“Good, because if he could just,” Rusty makes a chopping motion with his arm, “then I’d say he was probably going to try it this morning.”

Andy piles half the eggs onto one of the toasts. “The guy’s a joke, Rusty.” He slides the plate across the counter. “Mark my words: Williams will be out of Major Crimes _long_ before I leave the LAPD.”

“Well, good luck with that.” He lifts his breakfast. “And thanks for the sandwich.”

“No problem.” Andy grins, watches him retreat to the couch and the movie paused on TV. They’ve managed to do okay on this whole under-the-same-roof situation. Way better than he’d let himself imagine before he moved in.

Hell must’ve frozen over, for his kinda-parenting to be going better than his job. But the warning about Williams leaves him digging his phone from his jeans, sparing a closer look to the pile of alerts on its screen. The Captain had called seven times overnight while the ringer was set to silent. A series of increasingly irate texts appeared in the same timeframe, ending with, _Don_ ’ _t bother coming back to the office_.

Andy’s hand grips around the device; he fights the urge to spike it into the sink. _That dense-ass bastard_. Gathering his very last crumbs of calm, he sets the phone on the counter, still muted, and layers his own sandwich together. With a couple napkins in hand, he takes his plate and follows Rusty into the living room.

“What’re we watching?”


	4. Won't be Afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time and introspection heal emotional scrapes.

The emptiness of hospital life leaves cavernous, echoing space for introspection.

Too much of this mental room, in Sharon’s book, and not enough of anything else.

Her conversation with Andy — and its sequel with Cath — dominate her thoughts. Now and then, she turns her silent phone over and over in her hands, thinking about what she’d tap out in a message to her husband. It’d be a lie to tell him she’s sorry, wholesale, for everything she said. That’d be slapping paint over a dent they need to hammer back into place. But she _is_ sorry for the way she said so much of it, how she glommed onto his probably innocent misstatements, reflected his annoyance twofold, sent him away rather than trying to fix it on the spot.

None of that is fit for a text. And, for all she knows, he’s at his desk, working. A call will have to wait.

Meanwhile, every face that appears in her doorway asks the same questions. _How are you doing? What_ ’ _s going on? How long will you be here? Can I get you anything?_ Even Rusty, when he shows up in the afternoon, starts down that track, though she’s able to derail him.

“I’ll be fine in a couple of days. Tell me about Berkeley.”

“Well…” He rolls his eyes, but gives in. “It was nice. Everyone there seems to be really smart, and—”

“Just like you.”

A sighed laugh marks his answer. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do.” Sharon grins at his warming face. “How were the professors?”

So it goes, back and forth, Rusty offering cautious answers to her questions about the classrooms, dorms, dining hall, law library, study rooms, current students, journals, his trip into San Francisco…

The mini-interrogation lifts her mood just as swiftly as it wears her out. For this, she curses whatever chemicals swirl through her veins. It brings the visit to a too-quick end. He presses a kiss to her cheek, issues a gentle order for her to rest. To her surprise, he pulls a navy blue Cal sweatshirt from his bag. His grin answers her silent question as he drapes the fabric on the railing of her bed, but he offers a quiet explanation.

“I think that’s the one, Mom.”

Sharon traces the shirt’s golden decal, drifts to sleep on the wonders of years and love and perseverance.

When she next wakes, the room is dark. The irrelevance of time, here, continues to leave her unmoored, floating, and desperate for solid ground, even as the squeeze of exhaustion at her eyes says she won’t be looking for it now. As she turns into a more comfortable spot, a routine, unexpecting glance finds Andy sprawled over the corner recliner. The sight leaves her chest aching with a deeper, sweeter pain than has settled into her lungs these past few days.

He’s still with her. Of course. He’s avoiding the conversation they need to have, but he’s here.

It isn’t until morning, upon opening her eyes to sunlight filling the room and the chair empty once more, that annoyance creeps into Sharon’s reaction. This time, she doesn’t hesitate in reaching for her phone.

_No goodbye?_

She sends the text before scooting out of bed, shuffling into an abbreviated version of her wake-up routine. A response waits on the screen when she returns.

_On a coffee run. Back in a few._

Ten digital words. The sum total of communication she’s shared with Andy since nearly a full day ago. Above that stretches the list of unanswered texts he’d sent Thursday morning. What a long few days it’s been.

With gentle movements, Sharon slides her new sweatshirt onto her shoulders. She settles into bed and pulls the fleece tight around her middle, overlapping the zipper by a few inches. There are good things happening, out there. She just needs to get back to them.

Turning on the news doesn’t help with that. She mutes the TV, takes to sending another update to Emily and Ricky.

As promised, it isn’t long before a very familiar pair of men’s voices, their words indistinguishable over the ambient noise, poke into her awareness. Having heard many such exchanges outside her office over the years, Sharon associates the sound with mischief. She braces herself for the worst — what that might be, she can only guess — as their conversation stretches, then tapers with the shuffling of movement.

She meets their appearance around the corner with narrowed eyes. “What were the two of you scheming, out there?”

“ _Scheming_ , Commander?” Provenza scoffs. “Give us some credit, here.” Andy’s only answer is a long drink of coffee. His silence would usually be a dead giveaway toward antics, but today…

“That’s exactly what I’m doing by asking.”

Provenza detours, holding up a gift bag. “I thought it looked like you had enough flowers in here, so Patrice and I went in a more practical direction.”

Sharon’s face warms as she accepts the offering. “You shouldn’t have…”

“No, no. Everyone should have a few essentials when they’re cooped up like this.”

Her dig into the tissue paper within finds a wire-bound book of logic puzzles, erasable pens, a bag of extra-dark chocolate squares, peppermint Altoids, a set of travel-sized manicure tools, and a bottle of lilac-hued nail polish. A thick laugh escapes her throat. “This really is a little survival kit, thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” Provenza’s voice goes tight. “Anything to help keep you entertained and healing.”

“Oh, I’m doing fine, Lieutenant.” Sharon cuts her attention to her husband, letting a rueful grin curl her lips. “No matter what Andy might tell you.”

He doesn’t find the humor in her joke. His mouth remains set into a firm line as he rolls his eyes to the window. Worry snakes around her gut as she considers she might not be able to buy back yesterday’s frustrated words.

At the very least, she won’t be able to buy them back that cheaply.

Provenza clears his throat. “Well, you certainly have more color than you did when I was here before.” He nods at her IV stand. “I guess that’s what happens when they pump you full of high quality antibiotics.”

“I guess so.” She smiles. “But seriously, I should be out of here within the next few days. They’re mostly keeping me for observation.”

“ _Mostly_ ,” Andy mutters.

The glare Provenza aims in his direction mirrors Sharon’s own exasperation. “God forbid we try to have a pleasant conversation, here,” he says.

Andy’s jaw tightens. He stares up at the TV, drains his coffee.

Even as her pulse quickens, Sharon grins at Provenza. “Please give Patrice my thanks, too.”

“Oh, I will, I will. And, speaking of my lovely wife, I need to get going. She has a whole list of projects for this weekend.” Provenza points at Andy as he backs out of the room. “Flynn, I’m supposed to remind you to fill out your timesheet for the week.”

A humorless laugh precedes his annoyed answer, “And when am I gonna get a chance to do that?”

Provenza shrugs. “I’m only the messenger.”

While trailing him toward the door, Andy says, “Just tell the Captain I’m on sick leave, as long as I have some left. Once that’s gone, I’ll go LWOP.”

Sharon’s stomach clenches at the acronym. With a tone that parallels her reaction, Provenza echoes, “Leave without pay? Can you—”

“Whatever.” Andy grits, “I’ll figure it out.”

His partner fixes him with a long look before angling toward the bed. “Enjoy your non-flowers, Commander.”

“I will, thank you.”

“Flynn…” He trails off into some unspoken warning, waggling a point at Andy.

“Yeah, we’ll see you later.” He pauses, tosses his empty cup into the bathroom trash before jamming his hands into his jacket pockets and heading for the hall.

“Andy.” Sharon works a hint of command into her tone. It has the intended effect of making him stop at the edge of her vision, but he waits a few breaths before turning in her direction. She greets him with an outstretched arm.

When his feet remain planted in place, as rigid and still as the line of his mouth, she wiggles her fingers until he’s trudging back into the room. He stops just beyond her reach, ever stubborn, leaving her to lean forward to bridge the last inches between her hand and his.

At least he moves when she tugs him toward the bed and eventually relents when she keeps pulling after his thighs hit the edge of the mattress. She lets her serious facade break away into a laugh as he mutters, “Okay, okay,” and bends over to toe off his shoes.

Sharon scoots to the opposite side, making room for him to sit next to her. Once he’s settled, leaning back into a pillow with his legs stretched out, she curls herself against him.

After she wraps her arm over his chest and finds the best spot for her head on his shoulder, his voice rumbles against her cheek when he asks, “Better?”

“Mm, very.”

“Glad I can be a human pillow for you.” Andy grumbles this, but it’s laced with the hint of a smile as his hands settle onto her hip. She takes this as encouragement, burrowing closer into him and nudging her nose into his shirt.

The truth is, being held by him is one of Sharon’s richest, guiltiest pleasures. The old fish and bicycle idiom used to build up that guilt, though it’s lessened, somewhat, by the fact they’re married now. But no matter whether he’s the subordinate she’s definitely-not-dating or her husband, he’s always been big and warm and his cologne smells like a field in the rain and his hands cup perfectly over her curves and he has a way of idly humming when he’s zoning out. His embrace makes her feel protected, brings out a particular sense of safety that she spent most of her adult life telling herself she didn’t need.

_He gives great hold._ She can’t smother a snort at the old line, which had popped into her head the first, cough-syrup-addled time she found herself in this position. That’d been back when they didn’t know what they were doing, maybe a month after a second trip to The Nutcracker went awkward. She’d spent several workdays coughing and sniffling through denials of a cold, only to crash the following weekend. He’d shown up at her condo with a quart of chicken noodle soup from a deli near his place, a pile of old movies on DVD, multiple varieties of cough drops and Gatorade, Dayquil, Nyquil, four boxes of Kleenex, and a duffel bag holding a change of clothes, which he tried to drop by the front door without catching her attention.

_He stood over the couch, wearing a frown, before nudging into a spot on the cushions._ “ _Sorry, but you’re looking a little pitiful, and I can’t have that.”_

“ _You’re gonna get sick.” Her protest was weak as he guided her against his side._

_His tone softened._ “ _I’ve been around you at the office all week and haven’t caught anything yet,” He wound his arm along her back, holding her in place, It was all she could do to keep from moaning. “There. Good?”_

_She nodded, then, realizing he couldn_ ’ _t see the movement, said, “Yes, good.”_

Andy’s voice, sharper in the present, interrupts the memory. “What?”

She sighs at his tone before asking, “What _what_?”

“Was that not a snort-laugh I just heard?”

_Can_ ’ _t sneak anything past him._ “It was.” She smooths a circle on his chest. “I was thinking about…” The memory’s significance is tough to wrap into a neat verbal package. But if any situation calls for figuring out a description, it’s this one.

_Time to buy back those angry words._

Sharon clears her throat. “I was thinking about how grateful I am that you loved me, even when it was difficult, sometimes.”

Several long seconds of silence meet her admission, before he says, “Love. Present tense.”

He loves her. It’s difficult sometimes.

She lets his scent ground her as she draws a slow breath. “I’m sorry, Andy.” She releases the breath in a rush. “I’m so… frustrated and angry over getting sick again, but I never should’ve taken that out on you. Especially not when you were being honest with me.”

His thumb traces a lazy pattern on her arm. After a moment, he says, “I can’t say I’d be any calmer if our positions were switched.”

Her, “Yeah,” becomes a laugh at the muted honesty in his words.

“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have brought work into it. And I don’t blame you for Williams. I swear.”

She hums, choosing in the moment to accept this as fact. With a palm smoothing over his shoulder, she dips into the truth she most tries to avoid. “I didn’t mean it, when I said I don’t need you. I _do_ need you, very much.” Her voice breaks. “I have no idea what I would’ve done, through all of this…”

“Shh. I know.” His lips meet her temple for a long moment, giving her a chance to collect herself. “I know how hard it can be, believe me. I mean, I’ve needed you plenty over the last few years, right?”

On a sniff, she says, “I suppose so.”

“I have. And it sucks to feel like you can’t even handle the most basic shit for yourself. But that’s just how it is, sometimes.” He weaves his hands together at her hip. “I promise, I still see you as the badass cop I fell in love with.”

As usual, Andy leaves her laughing in the midst of a deep conversation. She muffles it into his shirt before saying, “Likewise.”

“And I’m not going anywhere, ever.”

_Oh_. It’s also typical, the way he turns the mood on its head, how he digs through the layers of her unease to find the perfect reassurance. “Thank you,” she whispers.

A tinny radio echoes from down the hall when their conversation dips into quiet. A familiar, melodic bass line floats into a tune that leaves Sharon blinking back tears again.

_When the night has come, and the land is dark_

_And the moon is the only light we_ ’ _ll see_

Maybe it was a cliché choice, as a first-dance song. That’s what the critic at the back of her mind whispered, anyway, when they were neck deep in wedding plans. But it’d felt right, as soon as Andy suggested it in a conversation not so different from this one. By the time of the ceremony, it’d taken on a new, deeper yet more bittersweet, significance.

_No I won_ ’ _t be afraid, oh I won’t be afraid_

_Just as long as you stand, stand by me_

Given the way his breath catches, Andy revisits similar memories. “This whole thing…” He trails off, shaking his head.

Shifting to meet his now-distant gaze, she asks, “What?”

_So darlin_ ’ _, darlin’ stand by me, oh stand by me_

A stretch of silence marks him weighing his words. As she’s about to nudge him toward candidness, he spills. “It’s terrifying.” He pulls her closer. “I don’t know what I’d do without you either, Sharon. That’s just the truth. And the other day…” His jaw clenches, his eyes drop to his hands. When he speaks again, his soft tone slices into her. “I thought that was… _it_. Right when I’d convinced myself we have plenty of time.”

With that, his half of their argument falls into place. Just like after his heart attack, his alarm came out as anger. Sharon presses a kiss to his jaw. On some level, she should’ve realized this is what drove his reaction, what formed the point he tried to make before they devolved into a snappy exchange of grievances. His fear deserves as much respect as her feelings of smothered suffocation.

“I understand, Andy. I do. I let my emotions run away with me, too.”

“Yeah.” He relaxes further into the pillow, slackening the tension in his back. He reaches up to stroke her hair and works a tease through the heaviness in his voice. “But you’re supposed to be the reasonable one.”

Her answering laugh is more of a sigh. “God, that’s a heavy load to bear.”

“I know.” His lips press to her head. “How about this… the next serious conversation that starts getting heated, we have the right to call a timeout.”

As his words sink in, she pulls away to look him in the eye. “That’s a very levelheaded idea.”

“Yeah, well, some super-smart IA lieutenant sent me to a bunch of anger management classes back in the day.”

“Oh!” Sharon muffles her sharp laugh into her hand. “I guess that paid off.”

“Sure did.” His nose nudges into her hair. “Or, at least, I’m _trying_ to make sure it was worth it.”

She hums, leans into him. “You’re doing great.”


	5. Through the Light and Through the Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation with Rusty leaves Sharon reeling on multiple fronts.

Saturday is the turning point of Sharon’s stay at Cedars.

She made up with Andy in the morning. Her midday checkup finds Doctor Planche smiling as he explains how the antibiotics are fighting back the infection in her lungs. They’re working well enough, in fact, that he leaves instructions for the nursing staff to release her the following day, barring any overnight complications.

From there, the view is all downhill with home on the horizon. Smooth sailing. She goes drowsy during an afternoon Dodgers broadcast and sleeps as soundly as she’s managed all week. She isn’t even bothered to wake up and find that pitch black night has settled beyond her room’s window.

But the sight of Rusty curled in the corner recliner, scrolling on his phone, threatens to topple her gentle mood. He glances at her as she levers herself upward. “Hey Mom.”

“Rusty, what are you doing here?”

“Visiting,” he smirks. “I wasn’t gonna like, wake you up to say ‘hi,’ you know.”

She offers a hum at his solid logic and reaches for her glasses. “Where’s Andy?” The question carries more worry than it would have if they hadn’t just overcome a significant rift.

Or at least she _thinks_ they overcame it.

Rusty’s response reaffirms Sharon’s memory. “I made him go home.”

She can’t help the way her brows shoot upward. “You _did_?”

Up to this visit, she’d been certain that only an act of God or tickets to a Dodgers World Series game would get her husband away from the hospital while she was in it. And, since the latter couldn’t happen for another seven months and she felt guilty wishing for the former, she’d resigned herself to him hanging around. Even when they both would have benefited from a bit of separation.

Now he’s at home again. Twice in three days.

It’s progress. Although conflict fed the first instance, and the force behind the second is yet to be seen…

With that in mind, Sharon stretches on a sweet smile and asks Rusty, “How did you manage that?”

“Well, I talked up the perks of a long, hot shower and an actual bed and the tamale casserole Patrice dropped off yesterday.” He glances out the window with the hint of a grin turning his mouth. “And, uh, I maybe convinced your nurse to tell him that they gave you something to knock you out.”

When she narrows her eyes at him, Rusty adds, “He needed the trip home, believe me.”

“Okay,” she sighs. “You have a point.” But, as she re-arranges to lean back against a pillow, she aims a firm stare in his direction. “I don’t like you lying to him, though.”

Rusty chews on the corner of his lip before he moves to sit on the edge of her bed. He turns his phone over in his hands a few times before resting it next to his hip. “But every now and then you might _need_ to tell a white lie, right? To protect someone you care about?”

Once again, he’s picked up on his surrounding adults’ actions, over their words. Sharon shouldn’t be as surprised as she is. “Those times should be few and far between,” she concedes.

He answers in a slow nod as his stare fixes on the blankets at her feet. “I’ve...um. I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot recently.”

“Lying to Andy?”

“No,” he shoots her an exasperated grin before falling serious again. “I mean…” His head tips forward as if he’s leaning into a sprint, racing to get his words out. “Like, I know I wasn’t excited, _at all_ , back when you started dating him for real.” He shrugs. “I guess, even though I already knew him, it was too close to bad memories. It was, uh,” he snaps his fingers a few times, “I’d been _conditioned_ , is what Doctor Joe said.”

“That’s understandable.” Sharon shakes her head and clarifies, “We understood.”

Well, _she_ understood. Though he never would’ve admitted it outright, Andy was hurt, given Rusty’s near-complete 180 toward him after Sharon broke the news of their reservation at Serve. She’d had to remind him that Rusty had never had a positive father-figure in his life. Ever.

And he _did_ perk up when she pointed out that Provenza was the closest male role model her son had.

“ _Well I can definitely do better than_ that _,_ ” he’d said.

Torn, then, between Andy’s rallying mood and her desire to point out that it wasn’t a competition, Sharon remained quiet.

The rest, as they say, is history. And it’s history still playing out, given Rusty’s serious expression as he continues his explanation. “I’m glad you have each other. And it makes me happy that he makes _you_ so happy. And even though I was worried that it was gonna get all cramped at home when he moved in, it hasn’t been bad at all.”

This last observation leaves Sharon exhaling a quiet laugh. “That’s good to know.”

“And he _really_ went above-and-beyond with this whole,” he waves his hand, “Gus thing.”

The Gus Thing had left Rusty’s mood crashed for weeks. And while Sharon took the line of giving him space, of waiting for the tough conversations, Andy chose a more active, _idiosyncratic_ approach. Which is to say he dove headfirst into distractions. Trips to far-flung diners for supposedly legendary burgers. Beach days. Hikes. Long chess matches on the terrace. He even set up “an outing” (as he’d called it) between his barber’s son and Rusty, complete with movie tickets and forty dollars for pizza.

Rusty had ended that night laughing at the dining room table with Andy, even as he said, ‘ _Please don_ ’ _t do that again_ ,’ three or four times. The memory leaves Sharon wearing a wide smile and lifting a shoulder. “He has his own way of helping.”

“Yeah,” Rusty chuckles, “he does.” On a shake of his head, he adds, “I guess mostly, though, I like that he’s around. It’s... nice, having another’s guy’s opinion on stuff.”

Her chest warms. “I’m glad.”

“Obviously I’m not happy you got sick, but Andy and I... we’ve gotten a lot closer over the past couple of months. To the point where I _would_ consider telling him a small lie, just to make sure he’s taking care of himself.” His expression twists into a question that he voices after a moment. “Y’know?”

Sharon opts for a measured answer. “I understand your choice, but there are other, better options.”

Rusty only nods, allowing the silent response to carry as he looks out the window. “Back when your whole heart thing was happening for _real_ …” he trails off with a shake of his head. “You know how, when you adopted me, you said that you wanted me to have a family, in case something happened to you? Or to me?”

“Of course.”

His brow settles into a heavy line, a sure sign that he’s arranging an important point. “I did some reading and found out that, even though you guys are married now, Andy and I don’t have any kind of connection, really.”

“Well, he’s your step-father. But the two of you aren’t legally related, no.”

He blinks at her. “That kinda freaked me out, actually.”

“Rusty, if anything happened to me, Andy wouldn’t—”

“I know he wouldn’t just _dump_ me, Mom.” This, coming from the boy whose mother abandoned him at a zoo less than a decade ago, is astounding enough, but then he says, “But, then, like, what if something happened to _him_?”

“Well... I don’t—”

Still on a roll, he doesn’t wait for her answer, “I mean, could I get into his room if he was in a hospital? Would I be able to help take care of him, if I needed to? What about if someone had to make a decision for him, fast, and Nate or Nicole couldn’t get here in time? And the same goes for me. Ricky and Emily live far away. They wouldn’t be able to help in an emergency.”

Sharon’s eyes sting at his line of questions. She both regrets that he has to consider these scenarios and recognizes them as worries she carried herself, back when her survival seemed less certain.

And, above all, she realizes where he’s going with his argument.

Rusty shrugs. “So, I guess what I mean is,” he swallows hard, “I think Andy should be a part of my family, too. Officially.”

She settles for a thick, “Mhmm,” because she doesn’t trust herself to form words that aren’t waterlogged.

He almost winces as he asks, “Do you think he’d be okay with that?”

“Oh, Rusty,” swiping at the tears trickling from the corner of her eyes, she says, “I know, for a _fact_ , he’d be honored.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get you all—”

“No, no. I just...” Sharon pulls a deep breath, one that’s nearly, thankfully, painless. “I love you both so much. I can’t believe I’ve been this lucky, this _blessed_ , to have the two of you in my life, sharing a home together.”

“You think _you_ ’ _re_ lucky…I didn’t have anything close to a family, before, and now...” With a loose smile warming his face, he says, “Now all I have to do is figure out how to ask him.”

After offering a thoughtful hum, she smiles. “I have some ideas on that.”

Rusty’s nose scrunches when he asks, “Do those ideas involve baseball?”

“Not necessarily. Though he’d appreciate that, I’m sure.”

“I _do_ want to make a plan, for when I bring it up.”

“You’ll think of something, honey.” She pats his hand, then tugs him in for a hug. “Oh, I am just so _proud_ of you, for how far you’ve come.”

“That’s, um… thank you?”

Between them, his phone shakes on the mattress. On instinct, Sharon looks down. She catches a glimpse of a news alert before Rusty pulls back, lifts the device, and drops it into his hoodie pocket.

She frowns at him. “Was that about David Burchell?”

“Umm….” He slides off the bed, glances to the door, as if he’s planning to escape. _That’s a ‘yes.’_

“Rusty.” Her voice goes sharp and swift, like a thrown lance. “What happened?”

He shifts from foot to foot, staring downward. A long breath winds from him as he answers. “The article I read said he jumped off a cliff and drowned.”

“In San Diego.” It’s not a question, because she knows all too well where the man lives. _Lived_.

For a moment, his lip catches between his teeth. The hesitation sends an icy rush down her spine, even before he says, “A bit north of there, actually.”

Sharon’s beautiful day crashes around her, because this news can only mean one thing.

Philip Stroh has arrived in California.


	6. An Earthquake Coming On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His return to the Murder Room leaves Andy with plenty to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Andy + making breakfast = OTP, I guess?

The easy thudding rhythm of a knife on wood helps Andy believe, for a moment, he has no more important focus this morning than breakfast. With practiced, concentrated movements he forms rough piles of chopped odds and ends from the fridge; spinach and zucchini, cherry tomatoes, a few mushrooms, half an onion, the last five slices of bacon hiding in a drawer.

After a hectic, unplanned long weekend, it’s time to drag himself back to the Murder Room. Back to the grind and back to whatever Williams is gonna do in return for him going AWOL. Andy will probably end up doing nothing but transcribing interviews for the next two weeks.

Or worse.

But it’s impossible to think of this upcoming mystery punishment as anything but worth it when Sharon appears at the counter, tying her robe around her waist. She blinks into the kitchen, wearing the soft, bewildered expression that marks the hours too early for her to care about being disheveled. It’s one of his favorite looks, if he’s being honest.

The corners of her lips dip downward. “You’re cooking?”

“Yep.”

Several seconds of quiet lead into her next question. “Isn’t it Monday?”

This is code for ‘ _Aren’t you going to work?’_ which is, in turn, shorthand for, ‘ _Please don’t get fired_.’ He chooses to sidestep the issue altogether.

“I was thinking about omelets.” He angles enough to catch her eye. “Sound good?”

She hums in the affirmative as she climbs onto a stool, leans heavy onto the granite. It’s a credit to their traded apologies the other day that she doesn’t jump on his little evasive maneuver. Instead, her frown reverses itself. “How lucky I am to have my very own personal chef.”

“Yeah and don’t forget it.” Even as he smirks, his face warms over the compliment.

Cooking is something Andy can do, and well. No matter what happens beyond — or even within — these walls, he can provide comfort in the form of a home cooked meal. As old-fashioned as it is, he feels most like part of a family when he’s in the kitchen, making a dish for them to enjoy together. He inherited that from his Nonna, probably.

The coffee maker’s final pops and hisses fill the gentle silence as he sets a pan to heating and cracks eggs into a bowl. Sharon is thoughtful this morning, no doubt glad to leave the full-blown distraction of the hospital behind her. She blinks out of some sort of daze when he clinks a full mug onto the counter at her elbow.

“Oh, thank you.”

“Welcome.” He drops part of the bacon into the pan, lets it start sizzling as he sips at his own coffee. As much as he tries to focus on the greasy slide of pork across teflon, Sharon’s silent presence leaves curiosity poking at him. She isn’t shy about finding alone time if she’s wrestling with a weight she doesn’t want to talk about. That she’s still here, taking slow draws from her mug, says this is something else.

He clears his throat as he adds veggies to the pan. “You’re gonna injure yourself, if you keep it up.”

“Hmm?”

“You’re doing some heavy thinking over there. I can feel it.”

Her eyes fall closed on an exhaled laugh. “Sorry. I’ll try to stop.”

“No, no.” He holds up a hand. “Consider me your spotter.”

“My emotional spotter?” She snorts. “That’s a new one.”

“Hey, what else are husbands good for?”

“Oh, I can think of a few things…”

Her low tone — sultry, if he had to put a word to it — leaves him regretting the eggs he’d just sloshed into the pan, along with the lingering signs of her pneumonia. He fixes her with a stare that says as much. She meets it with a positively saintlike grin and a lift of her shoulder.

“So _that_ ’ _s_ what’s got you all lost in thought?” he asks.

“Sadly, no.” Her tone points toward more of her point coming down the line, so he flips his attention back to cooking, removing the pressure. After he’s given the pan a few swift shakes, she says, “I think it’s time for a renewed focus on Phillip Stroh.”

 _Stroh_. It’s been a while since he heard that name. Not long enough. “What do you mean?”

“There was a development this—” Her words cut to a stop. Andy turns to find her straightening, shooting him a sidelong glance. Within seconds, Rusty rounds the corner, dressed for work and carrying his bag. She meets him with a wide smile. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” He answers, a frown turning his mouth. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m _fine._ ” Sharon rolls her eyes, but softens the words with a grin. When Andy and Rusty trade an amused look over her head, she scoffs. “I am!”

“Yeah, but you’re always _fine_ , Mom, even when your lungs are all…” He trails off, gesturing to his chest.

“My lungs are fi—” She bites off the usual descriptor with a smile twisted into pursed lips. “My lungs and I are practically back to normal.”

“Okay.” Despite the skepticism still lining his voice, Rusty moves across the kitchen, opens the cupboard above the coffee pot. He stills, asks, “Where’s my travel mug?”

“Dishwasher,” Andy answers. He sprinkles the eggs, now set, with a layer of parmesan before finagling the spatula along the pan’s edges and onto its bottom. With well-practiced coordination, he folds the omelet into perfect form. “You sticking around for breakfast?”

“I can’t. I decided to sleep in today and Hobbs is _already_ texting me, like, wanting to know when I’ll have her motions ready for filing. On freaking Monday _morning._ ” After filling his mug, Rusty holds the pot aloft. “Anyone need a refill?”

He gets two yeses in response. When he stops to fill Sharon’s cup, she nods toward the stove. “Why don’t you take breakfast with you?”

“Yeah, kid, this one’s practically done, if you wanna grab a container.”

Rusty tips forward, peering into the pan. “I see a lot of green in there…”

With an upward glance, Andy runs down the list. “Spinach, zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions. Cheese, of course.” That perks him up, a bit, just in time for the trump card: “And some bacon.” At Rusty’s hesitation, he adds, “A little spinach never killed anyone, huh?”

“Yeah, I _guess_.” The Tupperware he holds out offsets his skepticism. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Andy nods toward the bread bag near the refrigerator as he settles the omelet into the container. “You want some toast?”

“Nah, thanks. I need to get going.”

He can’t hold back a smirk. “That Hobbs sure is a—”

Sharon’s voice cuts across his observation. “Watch it, Andy.”

“What?” He stretches on his most innocent frown. “I was just gonna say that she’s a, um,” he searches for a kinder version of his original phrase. “She’s a really demanding boss.” When Sharon’s glare doesn’t dull, he nods toward the pan. “I’ll make this one a double and we can share, okay?”

“Mhmm.” She turns her attention to Rusty. “Tell Andrea I said ‘hi,’ and that I owe her a big bottle of wine.”

“Uh, okay, sure.” His answer is equal parts confusion and hesitation, but he — smartly, in Andy’s opinion — doesn’t ask for an explanation. “Have a good day, Mom.”

“You too.” Her voice goes muffled. “Drive safely.”

“I will. Bye, Andy.”

“Bye, kid.” Once the door clicks closed, he fixes Sharon with a lifted brow. “So… you were saying?”

Her eyes narrow into a tricky look over her mug. She takes a leisurely sip before explaining. “Have you seen the news over the past few days?”

A dry laugh chuffs from his mouth. “No, I’ve been a little busy.”

This earns a hum, but she doesn’t argue or otherwise comment on his answer. “Do you remember David Burchell?”

“Burchell?” Andy frowns, turns to check the eggs. “The DA guy down in San Diego? Had something to do with Stroh?”

“He was another law school roommate, according to Rusty’s research.” Sharon’s tone is dark enough to leave him twisting to catch her expression. She stares into her coffee, a line folded between her brows. “He’s dead.”

“What?” He drops the spatula, moves to lean into the counter across from her. The news goes a long way toward explaining her mood. “Since when?”

“Since Friday night. He _supposedly_ jumped from a cliff near Dana Point. The Coast Guard found his body on Saturday.”

“Does Rusty know?”

“He’s the one who told me.” At Andy’s widened stare, she grimaces, adds, “Kind of. He hadn’t planned to.”

“That sounds more believable.” With that settled, the news sinks into his brain. Dana Point. Just down the 5. “Damn, that’s close.”

Sharon’s eyes drop to her hands. “I know.”

“Rusty’s safe, don’t worry.”

Her voice goes hard. “Rusty is only as safe as he allows himself to be.”

“Still. He’s a lot more mature, more cautious than he was a few years ago. Try to trust him.”

A strangled sigh echoes into her mug as she takes a sip. “I _do_ trust him.”

Even with the new dynamic he’d dare to call ‘familyish,’ the close living arrangements, Andy isn’t sure he should point out the ways in which her confidence doesn’t ring true in practice. Instead, he lifts a shoulder, returns to the stove. “Okay.”

As he sets bread to toasting and repeats his earlier steps with the eggs, Sharon taps at the counter. “As much as I’ve questioned it, Rusty’s research has identified a whole list of people who are likely under Stroh’s crosshairs, and a handful, now, who’ve ended up dead. He tried to warn Burchell.”

This hits Andy in the chest. “He did?”

Her answering hum is thick. “I think he told Rusty to get lost, or some variation.”

“Well, then…” A surge of something like protectiveness rushes through him. “That’s on Burchell, that he didn’t want to hear it.”

Sharon’s quiet for a long moment. “I’m not going to blame the man for his own death.” Her voice is low and level, practiced. “No doubt he was busy trying cases, and I’m sure he would’ve rather left any memory of Stroh to the past. But now he’s yet another name on the list of people who’ve died under questionable circumstances in the last year. And, yes, this one is closer than ever.”

Her clear, pointed, “ _So_ …” returns Andy into the conversation. He shoots her a silent question before turning back to the omelet. “It’d be helpful if an active law enforcement officer could reach out, make sure the appropriate parties know about Stroh’s connection to Burchell, maybe check whether there’s an ongoing investigation in San Diego?”

He chuckles. “Still assigning leads, Commander?”

“Only to people interested in taking them.”

“I’ll fill Garcia in. And I’ll see if I can get in touch with that homicide captain down on SDPD. Uh…” He snaps his fingers.

“Brent Fulton.”

“Yeah, right. Fulton.” He arranges the plates on the counter, settles onto the stool at Sharon’s side. “I’ll see what he has to say.”

It could be his imagination, but her shoulders seem to slacken, at least a little. “Thank you.”

“We’ll get the details and make a plan from there. No need to go jumping to conclusions.” He pauses. “Uh, pun not intended.”

The back of her hand meets his arm in a blink. “Andrew.”

“What?” The grin she can’t fight off leaves him smiling. “It was right there for the taking.” He nudges her shoulder with his. “Might as well make the best of a bad situation.”

“Bad?” Sharon sighs, sliding back toward somber. “ _Awful_. Not only are we looking at another death, but Stroh is practically in our backyard now.”

“ _If_ it’s him.” He points his toast in her direction. “Let’s get the facts, first.”

“You’re right.” She draws a long, lung-filling breath, lets it flow from her nose. On a shake of her head, she picks up her fork. “This whole thing is making me paranoid, now that it’s all I have to focus on.”

“Well,” he starts, but breaks off when she makes a brushing motion with her hand.

“Oh, I _know_. I could find other, non-murder things to do.”

Andy chews through a bite of omelet rather than double down. She already knows his argument, and her other project seems to be stalled. With a moment of consideration, he dips into that topic, as regrettable as it might be. “So, uh, I happened to see that email from Lieutenant Masuki on your phone.”

She fixes him with a narrow stare. “You did.” It isn’t a question.

“Yeah, during your first day in the hospital. I was checking for messages, opened it by mistake.” He shrugs into a confession. “Kept reading, not by mistake.”

“I see.” The words are careful, neutral. She settles her fork down in favor of her toast.

“Seems like a dead end.”

“It is.” She offers a long nod. “Which is why I plan to help Rusty with his Stroh research for a while.”

“Okay.”

With a stare directed over the top of her glasses, she says, “I have to do _something_ with myself, Andy. I’ll go insane otherwise.”

He grins, despite the clear truth in her words. “No doubt.”

Whatever his uncertainty on Sharon’s involvement, he dutifully lines up the contacts she wants. Back in the PAB, he drops by Garcia’s desk before his own.

The detective is a compact ball of energy, even well before 8 AM. On his approach through the Fugitive squad bullpen, Andy watches her move across her cubicle no fewer than four times, dropping files into cabinets and arranging others near her computer. The room as a whole holds a similar buzz, the almost giddy rush of a case ending with a win. When his rap at the top of the nearby half-wall steals Garcia’s attention, he finds her wearing kevlar under her blazer.

“Morning, LT.”

“Morning.” He nods in the direction her roaming coworkers. “I’m not walking into an op, am I?”

“We had a pre-dawn takedown.”

“Oh. Congratulations.”

Her brows twitch toward a confused frown, but she doesn’t comment. Instead, her eyes flit to her crowded desktop. “I haven’t heard anything about Philip Stroh lately, I’m sorry.”

“Actually,” Andy pulls a printout from the Sunday _Times_ out of his inner jacket pocket, “I have something you might want to see, on that front.”

“Oh really?” The question is flat and clipped as she scans the article. She gives it a close enough read to ask, “ADA David Burchell? How’s he connected to all this?”

“He was a friend of Stroh’s during law school.”

A crease forms between her brows as her eyes draw lower through the piece. “Lieutenant, this says Mr. Burchell jumped off a cliff.”

“Yeah, it does.”

Garcia looks to him, then back to the page. “What am I not seeing, here?”

As much as he tried to ease away Sharon’s worry earlier, Andy can’t deny the insistent snap of intuition Burchell’s death kicked off within him. He lays out the most glaring fact without hesitation. “Since about a year after Stroh escaped LASO custody, his former acquaintances have been showing up dead under circumstances similar to this.”

“By suicide, you mean.”

“ _Suspected_ suicides,” Andy clarifies. “Deaths designed not to get a second glance.” The corners of her eyes crinkle as they lift to his, hinting toward a pity that sours the coffee sitting in his stomach. “Look,” he grits, “Stroh isn’t your everyday fugitive. He isn’t even our everyday murderer. He’s a grade-A psychopath, smart as hell, and knows the legal system inside and out.”

“Sure, but even if I accept all that,” Garcia holds up the paper, “it’s a stretch to think Stroh had anything to do with this.”

“Well, then, you might wanna start going to yoga.”

Andy deserves the glare she aims at him. “You understand this sounds insane, right? That he’s been piling up bodies in LA, under everyone’s noses—”

“Not in LA. Not even in California, other than this one. All across the country.”

A breath rushes from her dropped-open mouth before she mutters, “Fantastic.”

“I’m not asking you to dig into those—”

“—Well that’s good—”

“—Just,” he raises his palm in an attempt to stop her arguments. “Just know that he’s been all over, he’s been _busy_ , and he’s probably back in the area now.”

Her hard stare floats upward as her tongue clicks the roof of her mouth. “Great. Copy that.”

“Debrief!” A male shout pulls attention across the office. “Squad Room! Five minutes!”

Garcia nods toward the voice. “I gotta go.” She doesn’t pause before stepping around Andy, biting out a tart, “Thanks for the _tip_ , Lieutenant,” as she passes.

 _And that was supposed to be the easy part of the morning_ , he thinks, heading out of Fugitives’ offices.

Truth is, Andy’s been steeping in the knowledge of Stroh’s depravity long enough that the idea of him pushing an old — and, by now, no doubt _former_ — friend into the Pacific isn’t hard to believe. It’s the opposite, an action that fits his history. That’s doubly true if he gains something from the death.

But the sicko learning curve must be steep, given Garcia’s and Williams’ reactions to the news of Stroh’s little cross-country road trip. As he steps onto an upward elevator, Andy wonders whether there’s a way to make them understand.

Well, Garcia, at least. Williams already punted the case, so he can believe the Tooth Fairy lured Burchell off the edge, for all Andy cares.

It’s gonna take something more. Rusty’s research skills pieced together the trail of likely Stroh victims. But it’ll take nuance and experience to uncover the _why_ behind the deaths. And just like in any murder, the why — the motive — holds the key to understanding and, by extension, the chance to prevent another death. Stroh is a psycho, but he’s smart. He has a point. That’s where Andy, and Sharon, and anyone else who cares to be involved, can help the cause.

For now, he stops off in the ninth floor break room. The empty coffee pot offers a good sign for the morning, showing the squad wasn’t here riding caffeine through a late night. He sets to filling it, kicking off the normal routine with grounds and a filter and water.

 _Normal_. Andy aches for the state more than he ever would’ve admitted, back in the day. A couple decades spent buried in work — driven by self-preservation as much as anything — was the opposite of normal. Those years hadn’t left him happy. Far from it, counting up the number of times he either showed up at or was dragged to Professional Standards’ offices, the birthday parties and piano recitals and baseball games he skipped, the weekends he blew while staring at blood stains under flashing lights, and the nights that bled into mornings without notice. But the grind kept him going. It kept him distracted from the ruins of his life.

With that, he hadn’t cared about happiness, or anything like it. He was fine with believing it’d passed him by, or else that it didn’t exist; that anyone who claimed to have it was a fraud. Given his friends, the people he surrounded himself with, it wasn’t a stretch. Instead, he leaned on convictions and confessions, on hunting down dirtbags and throwing them behind bars forever. Victory was a close enough substitute for satisfaction.

It’s hard to tell exactly when that changed.

What — _who_ — kicked it off is less of a mystery.

The job isn’t all Andy has, anymore. He still enjoys the work enough, still gets a kick out of collaring bad guys, still has a great squad — with Williams as the shining exception. But even when Sharon was in charge, he caught his priorities shifting beneath him. Before he knew what happened, the peaks of his days were no longer marked by showing up to the PAB. He found them at home, at restaurants dotted across the basin, at the goddamned overpriced farmer’s market that’s grown on him more than he’ll ever admit.

The best stuff is the normal shit, in short.

_God, I’ve gone soft._

He’s thankful as hell for the switch, anyway.

A pop from the coffee maker eases him back into motion. He carries a full mug into the Murder Room, where marker scrawl still covers the whiteboard, tucked around DMV photos and SID shots. They’d been close to making an arrest on the strangling of Hannah Canales when Andy set off for home on Thursday morning. It feels like a month ago.

It’s surreal to notice he hadn’t lost a minute of the weekend wondering how the case had ended. Tracing the path of unfamiliar notes in the board’s corners, it looks like the first guy they’d pinned was a bust. Too bad. He’d been a real creep, by all accounts. A green circle around the name Natasha Vicker — the roommate — points toward her being the ultimate perp.

He shakes his head, turns from the board as voices pull down the hall. They’ll wipe away and pack up every hint of Hannah and Natasha and the innocent creep this morning, start all over with a blank slate and a new headshot.

“Ah, there’s the coffee fairy.” Provenza lifts his mug in greeting. “I knew I missed _something_ while you were out, Flynn.”

“Well, it’s good to know I leave some kind of hole while I’m gone.”

Just behind him, Mike cringes. “You’re back already?”

“Yep,” Andy shrugs. “Sharon’s out of the hospital, not like there’s much left to do.”

“Do you have any idea how contagious pneumonia is?”

“Yeah, Mike, it might’ve come up several hundred times over the past few days.”

He holds up an apologetic palm as he walks to his desk. “Of course.”

“I actually have an immune system, unlike someone I know, so no, I’m not sick. And overall, everything’s good—”

“Oh,” Provenza breaks through Andy’s recap. “So you’re out of your funk, then?”

“I was never _in_ a funk.” He’d been legitimately frustrated, for reasons he’s not about to rehash for this audience.

Provenza’s eyes narrow over his mug. Andy ignores the silent goading, making his way over to his chair instead. But before he so much as sits his coffee down, the unfamiliar pattern of his framed photos and other desk treasures freezes him in place.

“Okay,” he grumbles. “Who moved my stuff around?”

Mike slides a long, slack-jawed stare to Provenza, who rolls his eyes. “For as much crap as you have in your area, Flynn, do you really have the right to be so _anal_ about where it sits?”

Andy turns to shoot him a glare, nameplate in hand. “Are _you_ lecturing _me_ on how I like to keep my desk? I’m surprised you haven’t put an electric fence around yours—”

“Excuse me for not wanting ass on the surface I have to sit at all day.”

“— _and_ you didn’t answer my question.” Andy angles to Mike. “So what happened?”

He winces, but spills. “It was the Captain—”

“Tao.” Provenza’s warning tone doesn’t earn as much as a pause.

“—he put it all in a box on Friday, when he was in one of his,” Mike sneaks a glance around the office before finishing with, “tantrums.”

A jolt shoots up Andy’s spine. “What?”

So Williams _has_ been trying to dump him. Maybe even as he was reassuring Rusty that it’d never happen, thanks to all the rules in place. His stomach clenches. He’s gonna end up eating several plates’ worth of crow with Sharon, at this rate _._

 _At least she_ ’ _s not the gloating type_.

Provenza steps toward him, holding up a calming hand. “It’s nothing, Flynn. It’s taken care of.”

“Nothing?” Andy settles his nameplate in its spot, at the center of his desk’s back edge. “Our _boss_ packed up my shit while I was at the hospital with my wife. How is that nothing?”

“Because it’s not going anywhere.”

He doesn’t turn away from lining up his photos next to his monitor. “You’re sure about that?”

“I am.”

Mike leans back into the conversation. “Chief Mason put the kibosh on it.”

“ _Mason_?” Andy frowns. “Why would he do that?”

A scoff carries from Provenza’s spot. “You need to ask why our boss’s boss saved your ass? Better to just say ‘thanks’ and move on with it.”

Sure, that’d be the smart thing to do. The smoother choice. But the situation catches and holds in his attention anyway. He’s never been much of a friend to Mason, though that has more to do with his past competition with Sharon than any personal shortcomings the guy might have. Still. To hear he’d stepped in to save Andy’s professional hide… Well that’s something to think about.

And, as it turns out, he’ll have plenty of time for thinking.

He stays head-down focused on reading the full Canales casefile when Williams makes his entrance, obvious in its silence. A yelling request for Provenza follows a few minutes later. When his partner emerges from the back office, it’s with a hard-jawed stare.

Andy catches the look with a dry chuckle. “Oh, here we go.”

“You’ve been given,” Provenza forces his throat clear, “a _special_ assignment.”

“Yeah, special my ass.” He curls his hand in a _bring it_ motion.

“Records Management needs help with archiving our closed cases into the new system. The Captain told them to expect you.”

It’s worse than a week of transcription. “And how long is _that_ supposed to take?”

“Not a clue.” His eyes stick on the floor. “I guess, for him, being shorthanded is worth making a point.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t see it that way, being shorthanded.” Andy stands, pulls his jacket from the back of his chair. “In his mind, I’m nothing more than a pain in the ass. And God forbid I have a priority beyond the LAPD, on top of my worthlessness.”

“Well he’s wrong, and we all know it,” Provenza mutters. “Just go,” he points toward the hall, “play nice with the Records ladies, and Williams will find something _new_ to be pissed about soon enough.”

The being pissed part is spot-on, but the timing is less certain. Andy’s sure the Captain will keep him on piddly, nothing assignments, away from the squad on an indefinite basis, if he can stay under Mason’s radar. It’s a way for him to win — maybe the only way, with the Chief blocking his preferred action.

After four long, but quiet, days with Marjorie and Kristin down in Records, though, Andy lets himself believe that the Captain has moved on. That, with Major Crimes’ back catalog slotted into the new system, he’ll be free and clear to show up to the Murder Room on Friday morning, to catch up with the new case. His phone ringing at a quarter to quitting time slashes that hope, even before he picks it up.

A gruff, unfamiliar voice informs him a Detective Dartt requires his presence ASAP in the 3rd floor electronic surveillance closet, to provide coverage on an emergency wiretap.

On the order of his Captain, of course.

The nature of the case, the division owning it, apparently have no bearing on the assignment. Vice’s pursuit of Mid-City’s most prolific pimp? Whatever. Andy’s just a chew toy, at this point, to be flung around for Williams’ personal enjoyment. He calls Sharon, grabs two bags of chips and a Diet Coke for dinner. He sits on a silent line for seven hours before the lead detective shows up with relief.

She nods the rookie toward Andy’s spot, brow wrinkled in confusion. “Sorry, who are you, again?”

The upturned drift of the question kicks off a particular parade running through his head, featuring all the washed-up, turned-out, and, yeah, _old_ , seemingly squadless detectives he’d run across before joining Priority Homicide. The guys ticking off the days to retirement, who relied on the direction of younger, hungrier officers to get anything done. Dead weight, in short, good for only the most basic of assignments.

 _How the hell_ ’ _d I end up lumped in with_ those _losers?_

“I’m—” He bites off his first, rude, answer with a shake of his head. “Just helping out, down from Major Crimes.” Handing the headset to the wide-eyed fresh meat, Andy claps him on the shoulder. “Have fun, buddy.”

That show of indifference took the last drops of patience and common sense in his tank. Every one of this week’s wasted hours cuts at him as he drives home on half-deserted roads. He’s barely heard from his squad since Monday, just a few heads-up messages from Provenza and a mini-novel text from Tao. They caught a hot case, three bodies scattered in the Hills. Andy might as well be in China, with as little information as he has.

That feeling of distance multiplies when he steps into the darkened condo. It’s a rewind onto his old existence: work, pass out, repeat. He spends half a second considering crashing on the couch, in some combination of misplaced self-pity and worry over Sharon’s sleep. But the faint glow beneath the bedroom door chops off the thought, pulls him forward.

She glances up from reading when he steps inside. Concern shows in the twitch of her brow. It sends something like relief coursing through him. Maybe he isn’t a long-lost ghost, after all.

It isn’t until he’s flopped face-down on the bedspread that the time clicks into context. With his voice half-muffled, he asks, “What’re you still doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

He squeezes her thigh. “I was in the safest, most boring possible place, I promise.”

The sigh she exhales tells him that doesn’t matter. “It’s probably too much to assume you were working your own case.”

“You’re about the only person I’d volunteer to sit on a wire for.”

She reaches over to smooth a track between his shoulders. “Hmm, I knew there was a reason I like you.”

He lets his eyes fall closed on a chuckle. “I hope so.”

A long moment passes before she asks, “What do you suppose he’s trying to accomplish?”

The ‘he’ in the question is obvious. “He’s trying to make me leave, now that Mason stopped him from pushing me out.”

The sound she vents can only be described as a growl. It leaves him prying an eye open, looking over as her gaze goes far-off. She presses her book closed and drops it onto her nightstand. “Did you check the Chase account today, by any chance?”

Sharon’s been obsessed over money since she left work. That worry has ended up as repeated, not-so-subtle hints that Andy can’t get himself fired, no matter how much he hates working for Captain Williams. In her mind, he’s on the verge and they can’t end up incomeless while the pension system drags its feet, regardless of the balances in their various accounts.

He’s not gonna deny she has a point. A small one, anyway. After all, LAPD health insurance is generally pretty great — even under spousal coverage — but transplant surgery, its long, thorough follow-through, and, now, a bonus stint with pneumonia still pull a hefty bill.

With all this in mind, Andy sighs, “No. Why?”

“My first pension deposit cleared today, along with the payout for my leftover leave.”

“Oh, nice.” That second pot of money alone should be enough to keep her relaxed for a while, maybe smooth over her anxiety about Williams. On this front, at least. “One less thing to worry about, huh?”

“Mhmm.” She pulls off and folds her glasses, arranges them next to her book. Settling under the covers, she adds a nonchalant, “Opens up your options, too.”

 _Options_. “Oh. Right.”

Her fingers find his hair. “I’m not trying to pressure you.”

“No, I know.”

“But now you could put Williams behind you tomorrow, if you wanted to.”

The retirement option is a blank wall in his mind, white and empty when he tries to picture it. “As much as I want to tell him to fuck off, I just…” He shakes his head. “I have no idea what else I’d do.”

“I know the feeling.” Her ear tips toward her shoulder. “Well, about the second part, anyway.”

“Uh-huh, like you’ve never wanted to tell someone to fuck off.”

“You think too much of me if you believe I haven’t actually done so.”

After these last few days, his smile feels half-forgotten. “Sharon, if that’s true, you’ve been holding out on me.”

The curl of her mouth falls into the self-satisfied realm. “I have to keep _some_ mystery in our relationship, darling.” When he pushes his bottom lip, she laughs. “I’m saving the story for a special occasion.”

With the mood lightened, he admits, “Anyway, right now I kind of like the idea of being a thorn in Williams’ side. Especially after today. My quitting would be too easy on him.”

“Not that I’m _encouraging_ you,” her voice goes too-sweet, “but that mindset only works if he deigns to keep you around.”

He sighs. “You have a point.”

“Are you going to take off your clothes?” A hint of amusement colors her change of topic.

“I dunno.”

“Hmm.” Sharon tips onto her knees, reaches over to free the suspenders from the back of his pants. “Maybe you could use some help.”

“From you?” He rolls over, pillows his hands beneath his head. “Always.”

As she smirks, leans over him, a low laugh catches in her throat. In a blink, her eyes screw shut. She dissolves into a round of coughing, the last holdout of her illness. It leaves her half-hunched toward her pillow, trying to direct the maybe-infected air away from him.

 _Not quite back to 100%, then._ Something to keep in mind.

Out loud, Andy can’t hold back a dig at the sudden change in mood. “Ooh, babe, that’s hot.”

Once the fit’s passed, her hand plants on his chest. She fixes him with a watery stare. “Stop.”

“I mean, how can I possibly resist?”

“You won’t have to resist anything, ever, if you keep this up.” It carries a teasing note, but she still climbs away, scoots off the bed, and heads out into the hall.

He’s under the covers and fading toward sleep by the time she comes back with a glass of water and a handful of lozenges. She barely settles before he gathers close against her side.

“I promise,” he mumbles, “you’d never be gross enough to keep me away.”

Her nose wrinkles as she reaches to turn off the lamp. “That’s reassuring, I guess.”

He traces his thumbs down the planes of her neck, meets her lips in a slow, sweet kiss. The contact leaves her soft hum fluttering under his fingers.

It _easily_ beats every other second of the day.


	7. Trouble Keeps Knocking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cath questions Sharon's current focus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this chapter way before I wrote ["There's a Truth,"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19754266) but it turns out the two dovetail quite well.

“You’re right, this is better than the average PT.” Cath angles her face skyward, lifting her arms into the morning breeze. The low-angled sun casts equal amounts of golden light and shadow on the trail ahead.

“It certainly is.” Sharon had decided, on a whim, to invite her friend on an early Monday hike to the Observatory in Griffith Park. The month since she left Cedars has been swamped by all things Philip Stroh, and with dead end after dead end piling up, she’s taking a morning to regroup and reconnect.

Still, as they navigate switchbacks toward the top, the case sneaks into mind. It’s the last thing she ever expected, but Sharon finds herself relating to Brenda Leigh Johnson these days. The former deputy chief had leveraged her career to keep tabs on Stroh, at a time when no other authority took the threat he posed seriously. She ended up giving almost everything to take him down.

_And then he wriggled free, under my watch._

Sharon curls a fist against the reflexive thought, digging her nails into her palm. It isn’t a fair read of how Stroh escaped, but, like an echo, it keeps returning to her. It’d kept her near-sleepless for weeks after his flight, occupied by a litany of hypotheticals. _If I would_ ’ _ve checked on him earlier, if I would’ve insisted on tighter security from the deputies, if I would’ve insisted on a more thorough sweep of the office…_

It’s a moot point now, like it was then. Preventable or not, she stood feet from Stroh as he added another tally to his body count and fled. They’re living through the repercussions.

At the long, shaky breath she releases, Cath shoots her a sidelong stare. “You okay? Need a breather?”

Sharon sighs out a dry laugh. “I used to _run_ up this hill.”

“How wonderful for you.” This response is neither soft nor hesitant. “Now, do you need to stop?” Without an immediate answer, she takes a step toward the trail’s edge. “I could use a break.”

Sharon’s face burns — whether from exertion or the stark sunlight or embarrassment, she isn’t sure. But she follows to the side, sips from her water bottle before offering an explanation. “It’s not the hike that’s bothering me, really.”

“No?”

“It’s… everything.” At Cath’s sigh of a laugh, Sharon finds herself blurting, “What if I told you much of my life these last six years has been intertwined with that of a serial killer?”

She freezes, canteen halfway to her lips. Following a shake of her head and a delayed swig, she says, “Well, after hearing about your line of work, I’m less surprised to hear it from you than from anyone else I know.”

“ _Former_ line of work,” Sharon corrects.

“Yes, of course.” Cath lifts her sunglasses to reveal a narrow stare. “And with this being your _former_ occupation, why is it so dominant in your mind now?”

“Rusty. He’s been sketching together this man’s background, places he’s lived, people he’s known through the years.”

“Why?”

Sharon looks out onto the roads fanning out from the base of the park, the houses perched on the hillsides. It’s a good question, one she hasn’t considered often enough. “I think it started in an effort to protect himself. I think he thought, somehow, that knowing about this man — Phillip Stroh’s — past, understanding him, could allow him to figure out where he was hiding. To get him first, basically.”

“Get him _first?_ ”

“Stroh tried to kill Rusty, six years ago.” She rolls her hand in mid-air. “Well, and again a few years after that. But the first attempt happened not far from here, as it turns out.”

“My God.”

“Rusty saw something he shouldn’t have.” Sharon nods toward a just-visible structure to the east. “Over at the Greek Theater, he made the phone call that changed all of our lives.”

“How so?”

“The chief running Major Crimes snapped on Stroh, ended up pressured to resign from her job. She had to shoot him when he showed up at her apartment, looking for Rusty, who was the only person who saw his crimes. It was the messiest end for a case, but it wrapped up with Stroh behind bars.” She lifts a shoulder. “With the Chief gone, I inherited a squad that became like a family, a petulant witness who became my son, and a ranting lieutenant who became my husband.”

After a drop-jawed moment, Cath says, “That _is_ pretty incredible.” She steps back onto the trail, pausing for Sharon to follow. “But I don’t understand why Rusty would be looking for this man now.”

“Because he escaped, about three years ago.” At the widened stare she gets as a response, Sharon shakes her head. “It never should have happened. Some days, I still can’t believe it did.” She swallows hard. “But Rusty has found that a string of Stroh’s old acquaintances have ended up dead across the country. The latest was in California.”

“Oh goodness.” With fingers pressed to her chest, Cath says, “Well, surely _something_ can be done through official channels.”

“We’re trying.”

 _Trying, and failing._ Fugitives isn’t buying the theory of Stroh’s return, no matter how hard Andy tries to sell it. San Diego is similarly content to believe David Burchell committed suicide. In the face of this chosen ignorance, the role of serial killer Cassandra is weighing on all three of them. Each piece of background they unearth carries a question: _What will make them care?_

With this in mind, Sharon adds, “But, as it turns out, most people would rather _not_ believe that a known murderer is lurking in their backyard. Especially if they think they might be held responsible for it.”

Cath navigates a washed-out stretch of trail with a slow nod. They’re up and around the next switchback when she asks, “Is this whole killer thing the reason you’ve been gone from Dr. Clauson’s group for so long?”

On a sighed laugh, Sharon answers, “Well, no. At first it was because of the pneumonia—”

“But that was a while ago.”

“ _Yes_ ,” she stretches the word to a point. “But that’s what started it. I wanted to stay away until I knew I was clear.” Still, she has to concede, “And with the habit broken, I guess I’ve allowed this project to distract me out of attending.”

With a knowing inflection, Cath asks, “So you’re settled, then? You’ve accepted the gift of your heart, no regrets or conflict?”

Their boots leave several crunching prints in the dirt before Sharon admits, “I didn’t say that.”

“Mhmm. So maybe, now, you’re getting to the point of understanding your new physical reality. But are you leaving space to work toward emotional peace? Or are you shoving it aside in favor of chasing killers and workplace predators?”

“I haven’t done anything on Williams in weeks.”

Not actively, anyway.

But in the midst of her knife-edge focus on Stroh, that other problem poked through. Sharon was reviewing a list of stories by the _Times_ ’ mid-90s justice reporters when a particular headline twinged at her neck, sent her backtracking. _LAPD Hollywood Sergeant Found Responsible for Sexual Harassment Claims_. Brad’s anonymized accounting of Williams’ transgressions had begun with something similar, after all.

Within the first paragraph, the detour paid off. It gave her names, for starters: Denise Murphy and Janice Darrows. They’d raised a successful complaint against then-Sergeant Neil Williams, for his routine use of demeaning language against women.

 _If only that_ ’ _d been his last stop in IA, instead of his first._

Oblivious to the reflection she’s kicked off, Cath barks a laugh. “That wasn’t exactly my point.”

Annoyance grips at Sharon’s gut. “I’m focusing on what I need to focus on right now.”

Two raised palms meet her explanation. “I can’t pretend to understand what you’re dealing with. But I’d hate to see you lose sight of the larger picture, regardless.”

“I won’t.” The promise is hollow enough that it sends Sharon scrabbling for a distraction. “So, tell me—”

A quick pattern of footsteps approaching from behind leaves her biting off her question, glancing back. She finds a pink-clad form charging up the trail, visor pointed downward. The fast approach gives Sharon only a second to step aside before the woman barrels into her. In a blink of pink and gold, the runner is past, not so much as nodding in response to Cath’s greeting.

She shakes her head at this silence. “Too early to be polite, I guess.”

“I guess,” Sharon echoes. Her eyes trace the woman’s appearance, the springy bulk of her tied-back hair glowing yellow in the morning sun before disappearing around the next curve. Intuition pricks at her skin, pointing toward some unseen risk.

“So, what were you asking?”

Her attention snaps back to Cath. “Oh.” With the interruption, it takes a moment for her would-be topic to click into place. “I was just wondering whether I’ve missed anything notable with the Cedars group.”

As expected, the prompt kicks off a long, low laugh. “Well…”

Cath launches into a run-down, covering travails blessedly non-medical in nature. Alycia’s struggling with being away from work. Micah is graduating from UCLA and unsure of the future. Diane celebrated her 40th birthday. Rob nearly got himself banned from Cedars’ transplant ward.

With attention split between these stories and scrutiny of their surroundings, Sharon catches several more glimpses of pink on the trail ahead. Where the climb gives way to the flat, manicured lawn of the Observatory, she finds the mystery woman leaning against a concrete planter at the base of the building’s wide steps.

The earlier prickle becomes a cold wave of unease rolling over her. The Pink Woman’s height, her build and bearing, feel familiar enough to Sharon to be concerning. A glass of water that overturned into Cath’s lap. A form that lingered in the rearview mirror. Here, tightly curled blonde hair, and, yes, blue reflective sunglasses under her visor. _Maybe the giant purse isn_ ’ _t fit for hiking._

Cath, indifferent to her companion’s silence, stretches her calves with the aid of a nearby tree, still recounting hijinks. “…so Rob, naturally, wants to be the welcome wagon onto the ward, and his wife — being a nurse, she’s a stickler…”

Sharon follows her to the edge of the lawn as logic elbows its way in. _What are the chances it_ ’ _s the same person?_ The possibility seems remote enough to be crazy. Of course, in a city of four million people, there are bound to be lookalikes. In LA, particularly, young blonde women are as common as palm trees.

But this effort to rationalize falls apart as they return in the direction they came. At the base of the first descent, Sharon takes the excuse of a water break to look back. The Pink Woman is there, just within view, trudging along as she stares at the phone gripped in her hand. The sight sends her heart thudding as they set off again. Glance after glance finds glimpses of the woman’s showy outfit trailing them, until, about a mile into the return hike, she runs past again.

Satisfied that the odd figure isn’t lingering behind them, Sharon relaxes into the last span of the walk. With the warm sun at her back, she pulls a deep lungful of morning air, releases it in a rush. She focuses on Cath’s list of preparations for an upcoming jubilee in her order. All is calm and normal, until the final turn brings the trail’s base into view. The Pink Woman waits there, “stretching,” gripping her phone once more.

Sharon’s surprise draws her to a stop. Several steps further, Cath swings around. “Are you okay?”

With an aim of smothering her response to the Pink Woman’s presence, Sharon meets the question with a casual sigh. “I know it’s not far from here, but would you mind giving me a ride home?”

A surprised smile spreads over her face. “Of course not!” She gestures toward a still-shaded corner of the parking lot, where her sedan hides in the shadows. “C’mon, it shouldn’t even be too hot.”

After they’re settled into the front seats with windows rolled down, Sharon makes a snap decision. “Do you know that woman?”

Cath blinks up from stowing her hat in the console. “What woman?”

“Over by the trailhead, blonde, pink jacket and visor, blue sunglasses.”

Her eyes move in a slow scan. In a flash, Sharon fears her target will, somehow, have vanished in the seconds it took to describe her. But Cath’s gaze catches, then narrows. “I don’t think so, no.” She turns to Sharon. “Why?”

 _So much for the easy out._ “It’s nothing, never mind.”

“Oh, no no, Ms. LAPD Commander. You wouldn’t have brought her up if you thought it was nothing.”

“I…” Every version of the water-spilling oaf’s connection to the Pink Woman sounds unhinged as Sharon strings them together in her head. She brushes off those explanations with a tight grin. “I think maybe this Stroh business is making me paranoid.”

Cath’s eyes fix on her for a long, measuring moment. “Given what you’ve told me, that might not be a bad thing.”

Paranoia or no, the Pink Woman encounter fills Sharon’s mind until she’s through the front door at home. She attempts to clear its lingering sense of oddity with slow, full breath. Headed toward the kitchen for water, she nearly collides with Andy as he rounds the corner in the opposite direction.

His hand lands steady at her hip. “Hey babe.” He presses a kiss to her cheek. “How was your hike?”

“Good. Cath was her usual, philosophical self.” Her mouth sinks to a frown as he settles his travel mug in the entryway, sets into the easy routine of snapping his badge and holster onto his belt. A glance at her watch confirms what she expected: it’s not yet seven o’clock. “You’re headed out now?”

“Yeah, Provenza and I are meeting with Hobbs this morning.” His downcast tone leaves Sharon lifting a brow, conveying a silent question she already has a hunch about. He gives into it with a sigh. “Williams is trying to give our case away.”

A jolt fires up her spine. “Again?!” At his slow nod, she asks, “How many times is that, now?”

“Five in the last month.” Andy shrugs his jacket onto his shoulders. “And, like I’ve said, I wouldn’t mind so much if he didn’t let us get dug into it first. But he up and disappears while we do all the legwork,” he jabs his hand in the vague direction of downtown, “then shows up to say he’s pawned off our files to whichever CO wanted them.”

The story is familiar as it is confusing. Major Crimes exists to handle a particular type of case. The squad was built and fine-tuned for the purposes of turning high profile murders into convictions as efficiently as possible. But now, even with his own supervisory reputation on the line, Williams has kicked off a routine of passing off investigations in their most delicate phases. His actions disrupt not just his detectives, but the witnesses, victims, prosecutors, and, frankly, the departmental brass relying on them for a certain outcome.

 _What I wouldn_ ’ _t give to be a fly on Chief Pope’s wall when this news gets to the 10th floor…_

“Anyway.” Andy picks up his coffee. “We’re gonna try to get Hobbs to move on this one now, before the Captain can pull it out from under us.” He lifts a shoulder. “If not her, maybe the DA can have a conversation upstairs.”

A sigh catches in Sharon’s throat. “Why don’t you have him start with Leo, if it comes down to that?”

His stare goes flat. “You really think he doesn’t already know?”

“He might not.” She steps forward, gives a gentle tug of his tie. “I won’t pretend to guess what Williams sees fit to tell his boss.”

“You have a point.”

“I usually do.”

On a grin, Andy leans close, brushes his lips to hers. “Wish I could stay.”

This little truth grips at her chest. Still, she finds herself shaking her head. “No, no. You have the world to save.” She tips forward for another kiss, then pats his shoulders as she retreats. “Be safe.”

“Oh, I’ll _try_.” His dry delivery carries the long frustration of being confined to the office.

Sharon lets this be, leaning into the doorjamb as he collects his keys. “Tell Andrea I said ‘Hi.’”

“Of course.” After the slightest pause, he brings his lips to her cheek again on his way out. The contact leaves her wearing a perplexed grin. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Battles on battles they’re fighting, these days. Better focused outward than inward, she figures. With Rusty still tucked away in his room, the condo’s silent solitude sends a chill traipsing across her shoulders. The pink-clad woman trots through her memory.

On her way to the shower, Sharon stops at her desk, rifles through its top drawer. Under a pile of old insurance bills addressed to Andy, she finds a teal and gold patterned notebook, its mint-toned pages fresh beneath the stiff cover.

With the click of a pen, she starts a list that she hopes will have only one entry.

_5/28/2018 -Griffith Park, hike with Cath, approx. 6:00 AM_


	8. Deals with the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chance encounter with Andy's friend Clint gives new perspective of Williams' tenure in the Major Crimes Division.

The shots go off in a quick, practiced rhythm.

_Crack-crack. Crack-crack, crack-crack-crackcrackcrack._

Downrange, ragged holes appear in a paper silhouette. Andy watches from just behind the firing line. Five months into retirement, six months out of active duty, and four months past open heart surgery, a morning spent aiming at targets shows Sharon is still a better shot than he is. Having emptied her mag, she tugs off her ear protection with a smug grin. Her lips move before he gets his own muffs arranged around his collar.

“What was that?”

“I _said,_ ‘Not too bad.’” She pulls the target in, measures the results up close as she frees the paper. “A little wide on the shoulder shots.”

“Yeah, but…” Andy reaches out, runs his finger over the unbroken hole at center mass, where she’d landed four bullets almost on top of each other. Her level hum neither agrees or argues. He adds, “Pretty good considering you need a chaperone to get in here for practice, these days.”

_Here_ is the LAPD Academy firing range, just down the road from home. It’s the smaller, indoor cousin of where they first “met,” off limits to anyone without active department credentials.

“They’ll sell the gun to retirees for a dollar,” Sharon mutters as she hangs another target, “but won’t give us a facility to practice.”

“They don’t want this to become the Old Cops’ Social Club.”

She fixes him with a lifted-brow glare as she slides a fresh clip into place. “Uh, I mean,” he backtracks, “the _Former_ Cops’ Social Club.”

“Mhmm.” She re-holsters, nods at the protective glasses hanging from his collar. “Trade me?”

Andy used to tease her for this. Now he just tucks her frames into his shirt pocket and hands over their cheap plastic counterparts. They both lift their ear protection into place, Sharon sends her target downrange. Once it clicks to a stop, she pauses, shakes her head.

Her vision isn’t _terrible_ , the way she tells it. She can see well enough to survive without her glasses in a worst-case scenario, which is why she does this.

Again, she squares, smoothly draws, aims, squeezes the trigger.

“ _If anyone ever got my contacts,”_ Andy joked to her, once, in a situation not unlike this one, “ _it’d be the end of the line.”_

She hadn’t laughed. Which, looking back, doesn’t surprise him. “ _Luckily_ ,” she’d clipped out, “ _the chances of that happening are small.”_ After loading a clip, she added, “ _If I ever get to the point where I can’t consistently hit a target at 10 yards, I’ll get contacts.”_

“ _I thought you said you hate contacts.”_

“ _I do.”_

It struck him, then, that this is all very Sharon, this preparation for an unlikely moment of weakness. On the surface, it’s overkill. Even back when she was working but spending most of her time in the office, it was over-the-top. But as Andy watches points appear in the target, he fills with a fond admiration, that she goes the extra mile, even now.

With her gun empty, she rests it on the counter. She reels the paper in, and he uncovers his ears to hear the telltale click of tongue on teeth. He steps forward, holding her glasses over her shoulder as he gauges the damage.

After counting the holes, he points out, “You’d still pass a qual with that.” A hard exhale passes through her nose, leaving him asking, “What?”

“ _This_ ,” she jabs her hand toward the target. “I don’t know that this’ll be good enough if Stroh shows up in the middle of the night.”

_Of course_. Of course it comes down to Stroh. She’ll never truly stand down until he’s dead or locked away under maximum security.

Andy squeezes her shoulder, tries to lighten the conversation. “If Stroh shows up in the middle of the night, this is a lot better than I’d be able to manage.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing Rusty’s been practicing, huh?” Sharon’s stare goes from dark to pitch black. She may have given her blessing to the kid’s concealed carry permit, but her lack of comfort is as clear as glass. “What happened to trusting him?”

She rips down the paper with a strangled sigh. “Trust is different than training. He might be able to hit a target at a range, but he knows nothing about confronting an actual human being, especially someone as practiced as Stroh.” Meeting Andy’s eyes, she adds, “He knows nothing of tactics. Crossfire, for example.”

Andy doesn’t like the idea of Rusty pulling a friendly fire, particularly within the condo, but it could be better than the alternative. “Still, if worse comes to worse—”

He bites off the rest of his reassurance when the door at the end of the room pushes open, revealing a looming figure. In the shadows, he can’t make out a face. With the way things go around here, it’s someone coming to bitch at him for bringing a guest to the range. Even on a Saturday morning they’re sticklers for protocol.

But the booming laugh that carries across the space wipes away his concern. A deep voice follows it. “Well if it isn’t my favorite ninth floor dwellers.” As he approaches, Clint Hollman nods at Sharon. “Or, I guess, escapee, in your case.”

Her answering smile has an edge. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

Andy extends his hand to Clint, who shakes it. “What brings you up to the old stomping grounds?”

“Oh, you know. Trying to keep that shiny sharpshooter badge until the bitter end.” He rests a few boxes of ammo on the counter before crossing his arms. “It’s good for my ego, even if I don’t need it for riding a desk.”

“Yeah,” Andy sighs. “I know the feeling.”

Clint’s brows climb up his forehead. “So I’ve heard.” To Sharon, he asks, “Who’s keeping him occupied and in line these days?”

Her response is a too-bright, “Not me.”

“Neil Williams.” Andy manages to avoid growling the name.

“Huh, right. What’s his claim to fame, again?”

“Pole vaulting from Harbor patrol to Major Crimes. Other than that, making my life miserable.”

“Oh, whine more,” Clint softens the dig with a clap on his shoulder. “Is he the short guy? Blond? Only dude who wears nicer suits than you?”

Andy’s expression drops into a scowl. “Hey.”

“So that’s a ‘yes.’”

“His suits aren’t _nicer_ than mine. He just has some hipster tailor who’s willing to ruin them in the name of trendiness.” He lifts his chin. “Which makes sense, if only because he’s such a jackass.”

With palms raised in surrender, Clint trades an amused look with Sharon. “Obviously this is a sore spot, sorry.” His hands dip into his jacket pockets as he turns back to Andy. “Anyway, I’m surprised he even has the time to mess with you. Seems like he’s always hanging out in the boss’s office.”

It takes Andy a moment to catch his meaning. “The boss? _Your_ boss?”

“Yeah, who else?” Clint shakes his head on a dry chuckle. “Williams and Davis, like two peas in a pod. Lounging around and yukking it up while the rest of us work.”

His throwaway comment lands like a bomb in the conversation. _Winnie Davis_. So that’s where Williams spends his time, while his squad pieces together the cases he eventually pawns off. Andy trades a widened stare with Sharon. Her side of it tells him they’ve landed on the same page, as far as fitting the Chief into the story of Williams’ quick rise to his current spot.

She clears her throat and looks to Clint. “I wouldn’t have guessed they’d be friends.”

“Oh yeah,” he explains, “they go way, way back.” He flips a mischievous grin between them. “You never know who you’ll meet at the Academy, huh?”

On catching the parallel, Andy’s palm finds the small of Sharon’s back. “That’s true.”

“Not everyone ends up married thirty years down the line, of course.” On a grimace, Clint adds, “Though there’s been some talk floating around about those two, in that vein.”

Sharon lifts her chin, focusing on an unseen point across the room. Something in this dropped crumb has left her thoughtful. It reminds him of a vague gripe she’d brought up this time last year, back when the assistant-chiefstakes was still in full swing. She’d mentioned Davis being willing to use personal ammo in a professional disagreement.

To Andy, the rumor mill nugget seems too unlikely to be true. “Nah, there’s no way Davis would get tangled up in something like that. She’s too ambitious to risk it.”

“Maybe.”

Clint’s knowing look leaves Andy wanting to dig further into the conversation, but Sharon’s desire to leave practically shoves at him. He squeezes her hip. “Have you massacred all the targets you wanted to hit today?”

“I think so.” She reaches for her weapon, re-holsters it. “Clint, I’m so glad we ran into you this morning.”

“Same, and hey,” he goes serious, “it’s great to see you back on your feet.”

On a faint smile, she says, “Thank you.”

Shaking Andy’s hand again, Clint issues his own form of a goodbye. “And I expect to see the two of you at my next cookout.”

“Only if you promise it won’t turn into one of your famous all-nighters.” Andy trails Sharon toward the exit, adding over his shoulder, “That’s a long-ass haul back into the city for three or four in the morning.”

“Yeah, that same drive you used to make every day, remember? Like it or not, you’re still an honorary neighbor. Even if you _did_ sell your house to a fed.”

“Hey,” Andy turns around to fix a point on him. “Fed-adjacent. Don’t be sullying my name.”

“‘Sullying?’” Clint tips his chin in their direction. “The wife’s widening your vocab list, huh?”

Sharon snorts as she shoulders the door open. “I try.”

Andy shrugs, lift his hand. “We’ll see you later, Clint.”

From there he’s left trailing her swift footsteps through the long cinderblock entryway. As soon as the outer door clangs shut behind them, Sharon grits, “Winnie. Davis.” Over their crunching steps on the gravel path, he barely hears her acidic mutter, “Of course she’s involved.”

He can’t outdo her version of the sentiment, so he settles for, “Explains a lot.”

“It explains everything, in terms of why Williams is sitting on Major Crimes.” She cranes around, pauses to let him catch up. Her voice goes low. “You need to watch your back, Andy.”

“Mason’s keeping me on, remember?”

“For now.” She catches his frown with a glance. “It has nothing to do with your abilities or your worthiness. This is political. And Davis has _several_ axes to grind, at this point.” On a shake of her head, she explains, “That she’d fight to put Williams in charge of Major Crimes, and I have no doubt that’s what she did, it shows how little she cares about collateral damage. _Not_ that she’d consider seeing you shuffled elsewhere as anything other than an intended victory.”

“What the hell did I ever do to her?”

A strangled sigh catches in Sharon’s throat. They get to the car before she says, “You married me.”

“Huh?”

“Well, not _just_ that.” She casts her hand to the side. “She’s obsessed with the special treatment she believes Major Crimes receives, supposedly at the expense of every other division. Since I committed the _horrible_ crime of advocating for my squad, she isn’t a fan of mine.” She glances to the ground before adding, “Later on, she was adamant that either you or I should’ve been reassigned, and all of her grievances went tenfold when the assistant chief process was happening.”

Andy takes all of this in for a moment, then forces a frown. “I gotta say, when I thought about which of us would see the most bad blood transferred over just because we got involved, I saw it going more in this direction,” he gestures from his chest toward her. On a smirk, he tacks on the most hilarious part: “I had no idea you had so many enemies, Sharon.”

Her eyes narrow into near-slits. “Do you _really_ want to have that conversation?”

With a chuckle, he heads around to the driver’s door. “Babe, it’s fine.” Her side-cast glare matches her crack-less facade. “I can take care of myself, I promise.”

Climbing into the car, he can’t hold back a grin at the idea of sore-loser Winnie Davis propping up Williams’ useless ass. Once Sharon’s settled into her seat, he says, “Besides, her scheming is gonna backfire.”

Her expression folds into wary concentration. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, Williams isn’t producing. He’s punting our cases, leaving us to our own devices. It won’t be long before someone who matters starts wondering what the hell he’s doing with his time.”

With a sad grin, she reaches over to cup his cheek. “How wildly optimistic of you.”

Andy’s mouth drops open. The last time anyone accused him of that was never. “What?”

“I think it’s more likely that he’s setting up an argument that the LAPD no longer requires a Major Crimes Division. I’m sure Winnie Davis will co-sign his proposal, and then it’ll become a legitimate question.”

As soon as her words sink into his brain, the truth of it lines up. His gut goes leaden.

_Son of a bitch is putting us up for a fire sale._


	9. Start Small, Grow Tall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Father's Day weekend doesn't go as Andy expects.

Clint’s background on Williams and Davis leaves Andy watching his boss more closely through the following week. Like clockwork, the guy shows up after ten, noses around to see what everyone’s working on, then disappears for a few hours. In the afternoons, he shuts himself in his office. Provenza might as well be in charge, at least until Thursday, when Williams figures out they’ve got a workable case. At that point he rolls up with Captain Ross from Robbery-Homicide — how that rat bastard managed to get promoted up the chain, Andy will never understand — and announces their movie producer’s strangling will now be handled downstairs.

The news receives glares from around the Murder Room. Williams meets them with a shit-eating grin. “Look at it this way, team, your holiday weekend is officially free and clear.”

“Yeah,” Ross lifts a banker’s box full of evidence, flashing a dark smile as he leaves. “Hey, Flynn, Happy Father’s Day.”

This is what happens. Share a squad with an asshole long enough and he’ll collect the largest caliber of personal ammunition, with every intention of using it.

Sucks for him that he’s a few years behind the times. Andy’s weekend is booked up. And, as much as he hates to admit it, with all the shit Williams is trying to pull these days, it’s good to not have to squeeze family time around the demands of a case.

Nicole hosts brunch on Saturday. Yeah, her mom and unbearable step-dad are there, but so is Nate. So are Connor and Liam, who are more than happy to keep Andy distracted in the back yard, away from the ‘respectable’ grown-up conversation on the patio. He marks the day as a success, even though he ends it resting against an ice pack while Sharon teases him about being an overgrown child.

Settled next to him on the couch, she digs her lovely, but pointy, fingers into the knots at his shoulders. “I’m surprised you subjected yourself to eating with us _boring adults_.”

“What can I say? I was a little nervous about getting myself back out of those short chairs.” At her laugh, he adds, “I didn’t see you giving Rusty grief for sitting down there with the boys.”

“Rusty is twenty-one. He’s a lot closer to a legitimate spot at the kids’ table than you are.”

“Age is just a number.”

“Mhmm.” She squeezes his sore muscles, leaving him wincing. “You keep telling yourself that, darling.”

“I will, don’t worry.” A gentle silence falls over them, giving Andy space to reflect on the meal. It’d been a surprise when his son settled into a chair at their end of the table, several seats removed from Sandra and Dan. “I got through three — count it, _three_ — separate conversations with Nate, without him once hinting, or outright saying, that he hates me.”

Sharon’s voice goes extra patient. “That’s because he _doesn_ ’ _t_ hate you.”

“I dunno, up until recently all signs pointed in that direction.”

“Maybe he’s finally growing up. He’s seeing you more often and in positive contexts.” She smooths her palm along his side. “I really think your relationship is evolving, changing for the better.”

“That might just be a miracle.”

A level hum stretches from her throat, suggesting she doesn’t agree with the divine root of Nate’s thaw. Andy’s tempted to mention Nicole’s favored theory — what she calls the Sharon Effect — but decides to skip it. He doesn’t need to hear the well-worn lecture from his better half, insisting she has no bearing on his relationship with his kids.

The topic fades, anyway. Sharon gestures toward the bedroom as she stands. “A nice, long soak in the tub would probably do a lot of good for those muscles.”

His nose scrunches at the thought of marinating in one of her flowery bubble baths. “Nah, I’ll be fine with a good night’s sleep.” But, in an argument against his nonchalance, a line of tension down his lower back and into his legs leaves him grunting as he levers off the couch.

She snorts, watching this display. “With the way you’re creaking and groaning, I think you need it more than you think you need it.”

“You wound me, Sharon.”

“Do you really want to be limping up to Dodger Stadium tomorrow morning? Taking your chances with an already sore back in those hard seats?”

Probably with no shortage of prodding from his mom, Rusty got the three of them tickets for the Sunday game. He’d even added in the promise of going early enough for batting practice. That equals out to at least five solid hours of baseball-related fun. Andy rubs at his chin. “You make a good point.”

“I have plain old Epsom salt in the bathroom, _and_ ,” she gives his shirt a gentle tug as her voice dips into a sweeter note, “I could be convinced to join you, if you go along willingly.”

“Well when you say it like _that_ …” He nods to the door, hobbling in her path. “You’re the bath expert, lead the way.”

She’s right, of course. Andy kicks off Sunday in much better shape than he’d thought possible. Even though the tub saw more than just idle soaking — or maybe _because_ of those extracurricular activities — he’d left it slackened enough to sleep straight through the night. By the time they’ve had breakfast and gotten around for the game, he feels like a new man.

As they’re getting ready to leave, Rusty steps out of his room wearing a blue shirt and matching hat that lift Andy’s mood further. He raises his face and arms to the ceiling. “Finally, he picks the good side!”

“Yeah, yeah.” The kid’s effort toward a grumble fails short with the grin that turns his mouth. He smooths the interlocked ‘LA’ on the front of his cap. “Just don’t tell Ricky.”

“Oh, I’m _definitely_ gonna tell Ricky. He’s turned his back on his hometown team, and he needs to accept that kind of dark influence won’t spread.”

Sharon squeezes his arm. “ _Dark influence_ ,” she repeats at a mumble. “You know several of the Giants’ executives were investors in his first company, when he was still at Stanford.”

“So he sold out.” Andy grimaces. “Even worse.”

Rusty mutters, “Oh my God,” as he heads for the door. “I’m trying to get this baseball thing, I really am, but does it have to be so… antagonistic?”

“No,” Sharon turns in her trailing path, fixing Andy with a flat look. “It doesn’t.”

He makes sure his response carries as he stops to bolt the locks. “More than half the fun of it is in having loyalty to a team, Rusty.” Headed down the hall, he adds, “I mean, homers are always fun. But if you didn’t care about who wins or loses, what kind of joy would you get out of a rapid-fire double play, or a sacrifice bunt, or even a called third strike?”

At the elevators, with the down button already glowing, the kid fixes him with a blank stare. “I pretty much don’t know what any of those things are or why I should care.”

Andy smirks. “No time like the present to figure it out, huh?”

At the stadium, though, the first thing he figures out is the lay of the land, concessions-wise. After they get to their seats — at a prime spot a few rows back from the third-base wall — Rusty insists that a pregame meal of ballpark food is part of his own Premium Ticket Package. He heads off, solo, to fill the order, just as batting practice gets started.

After he goes, Sharon reaches over to twine her fingers with Andy’s. She settles further into her seat and angles her face toward the hazy sunlight, letting it flow under the brim of her cap. “Beautiful day, fantastic seats, Dodgers-Giants, and full-service dining, to boot.” Behind her sunglasses, her sidelong stare catches his eye. “What better way to top off the weekend?”

That hint of reality sends a growl forming in his chest. “You gotta remind me that it’s almost over?”

The center of her mouth pushes upward, into a frown. “It’s not like you, to not want to get back to the office.”

“Well, yeah, can’t wait to spend all week working a case just to hand everything over to another squad on Friday.” Andy grumbles, “I don’t know why we even bother, anymore.”

“Remember that mindset is probably what Williams wants.” Sharon pulls the dark lenses down her nose, folds the frames onto the collar of her shirt. “If you, _all_ of you, give up, that’s doing his dirty work for him.”

This calm assessment leaves him squinting over at her. “I’m really looking forward to finding out everything you’ve dug up on him.”

A quick inhale answers him, followed with the breath winding slowly from her lungs. It’s an unexpected reaction, one he meets with furrowed brows. “What?”

“What if there’s nothing there?”

“What d’you mean?”

“In terms of provable violations.” Following the crack of a bat meeting a ball, Sharon’s eyes track the hit through the air. Once it lands in the left field bleachers, she adds, “That could be why no one’s been willing to go on the record with PSB. Because there’s nothing to go on the record _about_.”

“What about that email from Masuki?”

She lifts a shoulder. “No specifics. Maybe he was just an annoyance to her. Maybe he blocked her from a promotion.” A wry grin marks her gaze sliding to Andy. “It’s not illegal to be a jerk. There’s no policy against it.”

“Thank God,” he mutters. “I would’ve been fired years ago.”

The back of her hand makes gentle contact with his arm. As Cody Bellinger digs in at the plate and the still sparsely filled stadium goes abuzz, her pensive mood deepens. They watch several balls sail deep into the outfield before she breaks the silence between them. “It could be a string of misunderstandings. I got it from Amy, who got it from Raquel, who got it from her coworkers.’

“Look,” Andy sighs, “the guy is _definitely_ a creep.”

“In your _wholly_ unbiased opinion.”

“It seems to me like your conversation with him didn’t go all that well.”

“Again.” She holds out her hand, palm up, like she’s holding a rule book. “I can’t do anything with ‘he’s a jerk.’”

“Yeah, but if it was just that, you’d have guys complaining, too.”

Sharon snorts. “Oh, I have a guy complaining almost _constantly_ , as it happens.”

He walked right into that one. “Okay, fine. But it’s different.”

“Yes it is.” Her brow furrows. “There’s no fear, with you.” On a dip of her chin, her voice drops to just above a whisper. “ _That_ ’ _s_ the difference.”

He squeezes a gentle rhythm at the base of her neck. “You’re gonna figure it out, Sharon.”

“Just…” Her fingers curl around his, holding his attention. “Don’t put all your hope in resolving this Williams situation with me.”

“I’m not, don’t worry. But I’m always gonna think you’re a damn good place to keep my trust.” Movement beyond her shoulder leaves him nodding, crooking a smile, changing the subject. “Wow, kid, you’re a natural. It’s like you’ve been doing this for years.”

Rusty sidesteps down the aisle, balancing a drink tray, three Dodger dogs, a boat of nachos, a giant soft pretzel, and a bag of sunflower seeds. His mouth is set in a firm line. “Okay, I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t volunteer for food duty here again. This is a one-time thing.”

“I’m just gonna hope your memory is short enough to reverse course on that, at some point.” Andy stands, reaches over to lift the top layer of snacks. “Especially if you’re not actually interested in the game itself.”

“Hey,” he grimaces. “I said I’ll try.”

“Alright, then maybe we can discuss rotating food trips.” Andy hands the pretzel to Sharon, then takes the nachos, a dog, and seeds for himself. He balances that load in one arm as he reaches for the drinks, squinting toward the lids.

“That one closest to you is Mom’s iced tea, the club soda is next to it,” Rusty explains.

“Got it.” With their pick of ballpark cuisine settled into cupholders and across laps, Andy nods to Justin Turner, who’s stepping up to the plate. “Now, let me tell you about dead pull hitters versus oppo hitters and why the shift is a load of crap.”

To his surprise, Rusty meets this with a grin. “I’m all ears.”

By the afternoon’s end, the kid seems to be catching on to some of the sport’s finer, more subtle elements. Compared to the other few games they’ve gone to together, he’s downright engaged. Even with what turns out to be a low-scoring Dodgers loss, Rusty only looks at his phone a few times during the whole nine innings, and those instances are far fewer than the number of questions he asks about what’s happening on the field. Andy can’t help but feel a little pride in that.

On their way back to the parking lot, they’ve just stepped up to the concourse when Sharon pauses.“I told Cath I’d check whether they had any jackets at the team shop.” No doubt sensing Andy’s impatience, she rests her hand on his arm. “It’ll only be a few minutes.” She flashes a smile at Rusty before heading toward home plate.

“Okay then.” He turns to Rusty. “I guess your mom is bringing up another valuable Dodger game lesson: you either leave early or leave late, unless you want to be stuck on Vin Scully Avenue for an hour.” The kid doesn’t react, other than to pull a deep breath. It’s at odds with the fun afternoon Andy thought they had. He frowns, asks, “What’s up?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking a lot, lately.”

He cracks a seed open between his teeth. “’Bout what?”

“About, like, family and plans and emergencies.”

It’s a heavier topic than he’d expected. “Okay.” He turns the word into a question. Rusty had been pretty shaken up by the pneumonia scare. After the transplant all three of them had fallen into the lull of ‘never again.’ It hadn’t taken long for reality to show up and slash through that idea.

Rusty pulls his cap lower on his forehead. “And what would happen if Mom… y’know…”

“Listen, kid. I don’t like to picture that a lot, either, but I can promise you one thing.” He waits for Rusty to look up before saying, “You and I, we’d be in that boat together. No question.”

“I know. But it still makes me nervous. The law is weird.”

 _This one and his obsession with the law_. Given the setting, Andy can’t resist lifting the mood a bit. “You’re shipping off to Berkeley and just _now_ figuring that out?”

Rusty rolls his eyes, but the dig leaves him tipping toward humor. “Ha _ha_.”

“I’ve got a whole pile of lawyer jokes, just wait.”

“Uh-huh,” his teeth flash, cracking a real smile. “I’m on the edge of my seat.”

After popping a fresh pinch of seeds into his mouth, Andy asks, “So what’re you plotting?”

“What?”

“You almost always have a scheme in mind, when you’re doing this level of deep thinking.”

On a slow nod, Rusty says, “Yeah, that’s true.” He goes serious, jams his hands into his pockets. “This one is kind of strange, though.”

“Strange doesn’t bother me.”

His eyes drift to the scoreboard. “I like having a family. I mean, a _real_ family. It’s more important, and better, than I ever thought it could be.” He shakes his head. “I don’t think I knew what I was missing until I had it, y’know?”

“I’m familiar with that feeling.” Especially in terms of family, of sharing a home with people you care about, Andy gets it in a way he long believed was impossible.

“I guess…” A moment passes before Rusty clears his throat. “I guess I feel the same way about having a dad.”

“A—” Mouth dropped open, Andy pauses in the echoing question he was about to ask. A few silent seconds pass, with sense trailing behind. It arrives and smacks him upside the head, delivering the knowledge that _he_ ’ _s_ the dad in question. “ _Oh_.”

He feels like an ass, now, for assuming Sharon put Rusty up to getting tickets for the Father’s Day game. The holiday hasn’t been great to him in the past, probably wasn’t so good for the kid, either. He just figured the occasion-haver-in-chief suggested a daylong distraction for the three of them, to guard against any disappointments.

Now, though, it’s pretty clear the game was a sign, a caring gesture for a changing relationship. That angle helps explain why Rusty wears a faint grin in this moment, taking in his shock.

“Well… it really means a lot to me that you’d say that. A _lot_.” It’s Andy’s turn to push some tightness from his throat. “But why would you say that’s strange?”

Rusty lets out a rush of breath. “Because I like the way things are now, I’m not worried about that. But I _am_ worried about what could happen if Mom wasn’t around.”

The pieces of his earlier point slide into place. “Legally.”

“Yeah.” He rocks back onto his heels. “So I guess the strange thing I’m I’m wondering is… Would you be okay with making it official?”

Andy doesn’t hesitate in answering. “Of course.”

Rusty’s eyes narrow. “You’re sure.”

“Like I’ve said, you’re not getting rid of me.” He’ll keep saying it until it sinks in. “I don’t have any problem with signing my name to the idea.”

Understanding crosses the kid’s features in a blink, like he didn’t see before that the two things were related. His answering, “Right,” comes on a sigh.

“You know,” Andy gestures back toward the field, now crawling with groundskeepers. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

“I know.” The smile that stretches across Rusty’s face is about as happy as he’s ever seen. “I wanted to, though.”

“Pretty memorable as far as Father’s Days go.” He forces a thoughtful nod. “You’re gonna have a hard time topping it.”

This gets him a sharp chuckle, a lightly shaking head. “I think I’m good with that.”

“Yeah, I guess I am too.”

The PA soundtrack fills the contented silence between them until Rusty’s eye catches on a sight in the distance. “Well, I hope traffic is moving by now, ‘cause it looks like Mom found what she was looking for.”

After craning around to spot the familiar form in the thinning crowds, Andy checks his watch. “Yeah, we should be in decent shape.”

Rusty holds out his palm when Sharon rejoins them. “Keys?” They share a silent exchange which, surprisingly, given her critiques of his driving skills, ends with the fob in his hand. “I’ll go out and get the car. Meet you back here,” he points toward the left field exit, starts backing away, “in a few.”

Andy lifts his chin after him. To Sharon, he says, “Wow, talk about full service.”

“Mhmm…” The smile she can’t contain is a dead giveaway to her involvement in… _this_. All of this. “So you talked, I take it?”

A faint chuckle marks his answer. “Obviously I’ve been conspired against.”

She shakes her head. “It was Rusty’s idea, actually. And I do mean _all_ of it.” On a nod toward the parking lot, she adds, “He mentioned it to me when I was at Cedars, this last time,” her voice goes thick, “that he wants you as an _official_ part of his family.”

The entire situation spins through Andy as it catches up with him. To think someone would actually choose to have him as a parent, after everything… after all that he’s fucked up in his life… It’s surprising, borderline shocking.

“I’m…” He opens his mouth several times, but words don’t show up to match his awe.

She folds him in a hug. “You’ve been good to him, Andy. I don’t think he even knew to hope for that much.”

After a moment he collects himself, presses his lips to the curve of her ear. “And I’m sure your sense of occasion had _nothing_ to do with the timing.”

“No!” Sharon takes a step away. “I’m telling you, it was all him.” After a few seconds, she lifts a shoulder. “Though I _did_ help pick out the seats.”

“Uh-huh.”

Her nose wrinkles. “He wanted to put us behind the visitor’s dugout.”

Andy drops his head back in a show of exasperation he can’t bring himself to feel under the circumstances. “Wow, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do with that one.”

Curling her arm around his elbow, Sharon tugs him toward the pick-up area. She’s beaming. “You’ll manage, I’m sure.”


	10. Remember to Forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stroh case evolves on two fronts.

The weekend’s events leave Andy lightened through the middle of Monday morning, right up until Williams saunters into the Murder Room for the day. Within minutes, a bellow travels from the back office.

“Flynn! Get in here!”

He trades a long look with Provenza. After the last few months, they both figure any one-on-one conversation with Williams could end up with Andy permanently weighing down a desk in Comms, or some other God-forsaken corner of the LAPD.

“Stay calm,” his partner mutters.

Andy shakes his head as he stands. “We’ll see.”

He isn’t much further than a step into the doorway when the Captain jabs a hand toward his phone. “You wanna explain why I have a pissed-off voicemail on the topic of you, from the CO of the San Diego homicide unit?”

“Well, Captain, I don’t know why it’d be pissed-off—”

“Because you’re insisting that the suicide of their colleague was actually a murder carried out by the apparently all-knowing, all-powerful Philip Stroh, who is sounding more and more like a figment of your fucked-up imagination than an actual human being.”

With his jaw clenched to the point of aching, Andy pulls a long breath. After releasing it, he asks, “What do you want me to say?”

“That, I haven’t decided. But I can tell you this: I don’t want to hear Stroh’s name again. Not from you, not from your wife, not from that kid of yours or your DA friends. I sure as hell don’t want to hear it from another department, bitching about your obsession with the guy.” His hands curl into fists. “I may be stuck with you, for now, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you pull my name through the mud while you’re hanging around, being the world’s most pointless anchor.”

It takes every combined ounce of Andy’s self-control and sense of preservation to keep from pointing out that the Captain has done a fine job of fucking up his own name. Instead, he offers a stiff nod.

“Seems to me like you’re bored, Flynn. You must not have enough on your plate.” He turns to his computer. “Dartt and Herrera need more coverage on their latest wire. Go down and do something useful.”

The order, once again far outside the lines of his position, wipes away his will to stay quiet. “Does this division have a purpose anymore, Captain? Or are we just here to do favors for anyone who bothers to ask you?”

A beat passes before a chilled response: “It’s only _you_ who doesn’t have a purpose, here.” Williams’ mouth curls into a nonchalant frown, even as he casually scrolls down his computer screen. “I’m guessing this has been the case for quite a while, though _someone_ no doubt went to great lengths to keep that fact hidden.” His fingers drum against the desk. “Hm. I wonder why that would’ve been allowed to happen.”

He turns to meet Andy’s glare, silently daring him to argue. After several moments of silence pass between them, the Captain shrugs. “Some people just don’t have what it takes to be effective leaders.” He shakes his head. “It’s sad, really, to see the types of behavior the department has accepted from its executives, the qualities it encourages through promotion.” With his attention drifting out onto the office, he mutters, “All the way up to commander, even.”

 _It_ ’ _d feel so damned good to plant a fist in his smarmy face._ Andy can almost sense the impact of his knuckles against skin, bones crunching underneath. One strong swing would snap Williams’ nose, leave blood trickling toward his mouth.

Just as quickly, though, he can picture Sharon’s disappointment, her anger, if she heard he hit a superior officer. Double that if she knew he did it because the guy was mocking her reputation. He’d be in the doghouse for weeks, maybe even months. And that’s not getting started on what the LAPD would do to him.

Where his hands rest behind his back, Andy runs his thumb over his wedding band. Rather than lashing out, he delivers a level question. “Is that all, Captain?”

As it turns out, the sneer Williams wears, his obvious frustration at Andy’s controlled rage, is almost as satisfying as throwing a punch. But he flips the situation upside down by answering, “Actually, no.”

“Really.”

He nods to the phone. “It appears you’ve been conducting an extralegal investigation—”

“Stroh is the subject of a bona fide LAPD case—”

Williams shoots out of his seat. “Shut the hell up!” The change in position leaves him still staring upward, having to use a jabbed finger in a show of dominance. “You answer to me as long as you’re on this fucking squad. I passed that case to Fugitives for a reason, and even now you can’t keep your hands off it.” He pulls back, straightens his jacket. “I’m _afraid_ I have to pass this incident up the chain—”

“Fine.” Andy turns to leave, not about to give him the satisfaction of playing out the do-gooder-of-a-boss role. “You let me know what happens with that.”

The Captain shouts after him, but he doesn’t slow as he walks past his desk, scooping up his phone on the way out. “Back on wiretap duty,” he explains to a drop-jawed Provenza. “Call me if he starts packing up my stuff again.” The squad’s reaction is stunned silence as he strolls from the office.

Downstairs, the monitoring room is isolated and quiet. Tucked deep inside the PAB, Andy’s cell displays an X where the signal strength should be. Without any kind of distraction, the morning’s events boil away at his gut.

More than once he’s been accused of starting battles at the war’s expense. And, sure, his temper has led him into traps before. But this is different. He might be facing discipline, but he’s as clear-headed about it as he’s ever been. This is a fight-or-die situation, end of the line. The Stroh question isn’t about his career. It’s about family. It’s about holding strong and doing the right thing, even when he’s pitted against every administrative roadblock in the book.

It just so happens that doing the right thing, in this case, looks a lot like getting into trouble. Good thing he has plenty of practice in handling the consequences.

And from bosses way more intimidating than Neil Williams, at that.

He’s shaken out of picturing the ways his former COs would handle a Williams situation when the desk phone at his elbow starts chirping. Not knowing who the call could be meant for, he hesitates for several rings before picking up. “Flynn.”

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” A half-familiar woman responds. “Assistant Chief Mason would like to see you in his office.”

“Um,” the chair he’s been lounging in clanks upright as he leans forward. As if it’s not bad enough being summoned to the brass, he’s gotta deal with being glued down, too. “I’m supposed to be on this wiretap…”

The woman’s voice lifts into amusement. “Right. I’ve verified with Detective Dartt that the monitoring order isn’t set to go into effect until this afternoon. So you should be clear.”

 _That asshole sent me to time-out._ Andy swallows his anger, recognizing it’d be misdirected at Mason’s assistant. “I’ll be right up.”

A few minutes later, the woman — Tara, as her nameplate reminds him — wears a sympathetic smile as she waves him into the Assistant Chief’s office.

The man in question barely looks up as Andy draws to a stop inside. He lifts a thin packet of paper off his blotter. “This isn’t a good look, Lieutenant.”

Though it might deepen the trouble he’s in, Andy can’t resist taking the opportunity to set the record straight. “Chief, all I’m trying to do is keep eyes on the Stroh case.” When this doesn’t earn an immediate argument, he adds, “He could walk right up to my front door and Captain Williams wouldn’t care, but _someone_ needs to.”

Mason lets out a long breath. He nods to one of the chairs across his polished desk. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

The offer leaves a confused frown crossing Andy’s face. He expected an old-fashioned dressing down of the eyes-forward, no-flinch variety, not a chat. “Uh, okay.”

Before he’s settled, Mason sets into his point. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the Captain is hellbent on booting you off his squad.”

“No, sir. I’ve figured that much out on my own.”

He smirks. “What _I_ can’t piece together is why.” With a few taps on his desk, Mason emphasizes the list he launches into. “You’re a veteran homicide detective, he’s new to this world. He hasn’t had similar issues with anyone else on Major Crimes—”

“ _Yet_ ,” Andy adds. “At this rate, it’s only a matter of time.” He lifts a shoulder. “Plus, I’d argue he’s targeted Sykes, too. She’s just quieter about it.”

Quiet enough that he sometimes wonders how much she keeps to herself. But that’s outside the bounds of this conversation.

Even so, Mason’s expression shifts. “Noted.” He gestures toward the hall, in the general direction of the Murder Room. “But he hasn’t told me he wants to move Sykes. From your perspective, why is that effort focused on you, in particular?”

A dry laugh escapes him. “I dunno. I guess he doesn’t like me.”

Mason eases further into his chair. “But _why_?” At the stretch of silence that marks Andy considering his answer, the Chief shakes his head. “Come on. You’ve been at this long enough to read him.”

He _has_. But he also knows the amount of power generated by the LAPD rumor mill. Williams, at the very least, pretends to stand for a separation of the personal and professional. On the surface, that’s his gripe. It’s a stance that would find plenty of sympathy among the ranks, maybe even in this office. After all, Andy got his share of face-to-face ribbing when people found out he was dating his CO. He heard the darker shit secondhand.

All of this combines into a front that leaves him uneasy at the idea of just saying it outright, _Williams seems to have some issue with Sharon_. It sounds a little unhinged, a little whiny. It’s a deflection. She’s removed from the equation, anyway.

In the end, he tries to sum it up less directly. “I think the Captain disagrees with how the division worked before he showed up.”

“I see.” Mason’s eyes narrow enough to make Andy believe he got the message. “That’s unfortunate. I was quite pleased with Major Crimes’ performance, as I’m sure you know.”

 _Yep. He got it._ “I do know, yeah.”

Mason thumbs through several of the pages on his desk. “Captain Williams came highly recommended by Chief Davis—”

“No kidding.” The grumble was louder than Andy intended, given the wide-eyed stare he receives. “Sorry, Chief.”

“No, no. You may have a point. I’ve certainly seen them together often since he moved up here.” He angles back, folding his hands at his waist. “But Davis’ reasoning in making the suggestion to Chief Pope was that Headquarters is like the royal family of the LAPD. She believes it’s become, for lack of a better term, ‘inbred.’ Williams was her nomination to bring fresh blood into the gene pool.”

“So we’re, what? Guinea pigs in the Pope’s—” Mason’s peaked brow leaves Andy self-correcting, “uh, _Chief_ Pope’s experiment?”

Surprisingly, the question sends the Chief grinning. “You may not be too far off.”

“No offense, but that’s bullshit. This squad, the kind of work we do, it isn’t the place to give some no-name a shot.”

The responding quiet stretches long, leaving Andy assuming he’s crossed the line. But with a stare focused in the distance, Mason’s chin twitches upward. “Recent decisions may have relied more on politics than operational concerns.” His eyes level across the desk. “I’m not gonna deny that. What I have to do, sitting in this chair, is minimize the damage. You understand?”

“In theory, yeah, I get it.” He nods toward the papers. “But how does it apply here, specifically?”

“I won’t transfer you, and I’m not pursuing the kind of administrative action the Captain is requesting, because it isn’t warranted.” Mason holds up the pages before dropping them into the wastebasket at his side. “But you should know I don’t have the power, at this point, to remove him from his position, either. So he’s responsible for conducting your yearly performance appraisals, I can’t change that.”

Andy directs a scoff skyward before straightening again. “Chief, I’ve been a lieutenant for almost 20 years, now. I don’t need glowing reviews anymore. We all know I’m not moving up the chain.”

“As long as you’re clear on the circumstances.”

“I am. But, speaking of circumstances…” He shakes his head. “I’m not dropping the Stroh thing. It isn’t our case anymore, I get that, but I can’t just dig in and wait for him to turn up on his own terms.”

Mason steeples his fingers at his chin. He’s quiet for a long moment. “Truthfully, I don’t blame you.” Again, he smirks as Andy’s mouth drops open. “I’ve read the entire file, at your wife’s advice, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe, next time you want to reach out to another agency, I can help you with that.”

“I…” With any of the other bodies that have sat in this office, the suggestion would’ve come across as a trap. But something about Mason, and this conversation in particular, rings true. Against his first instinct, Andy accepts the offer. “That’d be helpful, sir. Thanks.”

“Might as well have a unified approach, right? You keep me posted, it’s possible I could help nudge the case back into active status somewhere.”

“Really?” This forces his skepticism over the line. It takes the form of a frown, a lifted chin. “And what would you get out of that?”

Mason pushes up from his chair, marking the meeting’s end. “Don’t get me wrong, Lieutenant. I’m concerned about the LAPD’s image in all this. But, at the same time, I don’t want Stroh walking up to your front door, as you said. That would be a disaster on multiple fronts.” He nods to the hall. “We can agree on a need to hold onto the case while also working it responsibly, yes?”

Andy stands, letting the question sink in before he answers. “I can be quieter about it, yeah.” With that settled in a better-than-expected outcome, he lifts an arm toward the elevators. “So am I sitting on a nonexistent wire, or can I actually work today?”

“He has you—” Mason breaks off, his eyes sliding closed on a long breath. “Never mind.” He rubs at his forehead. “Go back to your squad. I need to speak with Captain Williams, anyway.”

To the Chief’s even greater credit, he spends what could’ve been an awkward walk to the Murder Room asking how Sharon’s holding up. Andy’s more than happy to give him the rundown. The positive focus lifts his mood.

Which is good, given the way his appearance in the bullpen sends Williams sneering. His mouth is moving to fire off some smart-ass comment when he sees Mason. He freezes, reverses course. “Oh. Chief. How are you this morn—” He glances at his watch. “Uh, this afternoon?”

Mason’s pace toward the Captain’s office holds steady. “Fine. I’d like to have a word, please.”

With the room’s blinds drawn, Andy doesn’t hesitate to aim a sarcastic salute that way once the door’s closed.

“So,” Provenza’s chair creaks as he leans back into it. “Mason bailed you out again, huh?”

“More like the Captain bitched too loud and pulled in more attention than he wanted.” Andy pulls off his jacket, settling in. “We might have hit a turning point, here.”

Tao cranes around from his computer wearing a sly grin. “Leave it to you to annoy the boss into submission.”

“He’s had plenty of practice over the last four years or so,” Provenza mutters.

Ignoring him, Andy lifts his phone from his pocket. “Everyone’s gotta have a talent, Mike.” After tapping out a message, he turns to the board. An autopsy photo marks its center. “Now, what do we got?”

-_-_-_-_-_-_

 _Mason isn_ ’ _t half bad._

Sharon rolls her eyes at Andy’s text. She swipes out a quick response, _Imagine that_ , before stashing the phone in her purse.

Across the table, Andrea smirks. “Entertainment from your offspring?”

“My husband, actually.” She returns the expression before taking a sip of wine. “He’s making friends.”

“Aw, bless his heart. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

Pairing her grin with narrowed eyes, Sharon says, “Be nice.”

“No thanks. That’s your job, not mine.”

The quip leaves a sharp laugh escaping her as she reaches for a menu. “So does that bold mood of yours have anything to do with this unexpected invitation to weekday brunch?”

“I…” A lungful of breath rushes from Andrea’s mouth, “needed a day. For so _very_ many reasons.”

Sharon frowns. It’s highly out-of-character, her skipping work. And with such gusto, too. She offers a level hum while scanning the specials.

Again, it’s hard not to feel out of the loop. She should already know the issue — or, more likely _issues_ — behind this mental health day. At the PAB, she had enough connections to stay updated on the political machinations of not just the LAPD, but the DA’s office, judicial chambers, and a wide swath of the sheriff’s leadership, too. Now she has to settle for infrequent get-togethers with Andrea, or the few crumbs Rusty brings home from his internship.

She gave up on tasking Andy months ago. He’s useful for many things. Keeping abreast of the justice system’s interpersonal quirks isn’t on the list.

Andrea clears her throat, breaking their companionable silence. “I have to tell you, I’m concerned about Rusty.”

Sharon freezes, her glass halfway to her mouth. “Concerned?” She abandons her wine to the table. “Why?”

A heavy sigh kicks off the answer. “I wasn’t even going to bring it up with you, since I’ve already discussed it with him, and I wouldn’t go to any of my other interns’ parents, but…” She taps at her napkin, seemingly weighing something before she says, “It seems he’s been having some… conversations, at the courthouse. Word’s getting around, now, and it’s proving to be quite the distraction.”

A chill tickles Sharon’s spine. “Andrea, what are you talking about?”

“You know I encourage my employees, especially the younger ones, to build professional relationships.”

“Yes…”

“Well,” she downs a mouthful of chardonnay, winces before explaining, “Rusty’s been using his face time with judges to segue from questions about what he can expect in law school to how closely they worked with Philip Stroh.”

Sharon’s stomach plummets. “He hasn’t.”

“Oh, he has.” Andrea’s eyes shift to the window. “I can’t necessarily fault him. God knows his connection to the case is… _unique_.” She shakes her head, returns her weary gaze to the table. “But most of that group is ashamed that Stroh was in our midst for so long. People — especially the ones who mentored him, or worked closely with him — don’t want to be reminded of it.”

A hard frustration twists between Sharon’s shoulders. “Well, and knowing Rusty, he hasn’t been upfront about his real interest in scheduling these meetings.”

“No, he isn’t.”

“Andrea, I’m so sorry—”

She holds up a hand. “Rusty’s an adult, he makes his own choices.” At this, she tips her glass in Sharon’s direction. “Like I said, the whole thing left me unsettled more than angry.” Lifting her menu again, she adds, “And it’s not even _close_ to why we’re enjoying lunch wine on a Monday.”

Andrea spills the details on that — a new ADA with an ego the size of Texas and a meager skillset to match it — over the course of the meal. But, unsurprisingly, it’s the news about Rusty that sticks in Sharon’s mind. Her unease grows deeper as the day wears on, doubling when she arrives home to an empty condo. It’s well after dark when Andy joins her.

She lays out the situation as he heats up a plate of leftovers, rounding off the explanation with a long sigh. “I just… God, I have no idea what he’s doing.”

“Well…” Still standing at the kitchen counter, he lets the word trail off into a mouthful of pilaf.

Sharon lifts a brow. “Please tell me you’re not going to _defend_ him.”

“I’m sure he thinks he’s doing the right thing.” He pauses in scooping up another bite, jabs his free hand in the direction of downtown. “And, y’know, I don’t really care that these bigwig judges are embarrassed that they used to work with Stroh. The Chief spent years trying to sound the alarm on him, and no one bothered to stop and think, then, that she might have a point.”

“Even so.” She rolls her head back and forth along her shoulders, an unsuccessful attempt to ease the tension there. “It’s the way he’s going about it. And every action of his, right now, is associated with Andrea.”

“Hobbs is Hobbs, her work speaks for itself. No intern is gonna ruin her reputation.”

She sniffs, mutters, “It’s wrong.”

Andy shakes his head. “I mean, it’s not like there’s a set of written rules for getting career guidance—’

“It’s dishonest. Dishonesty is _always_ against the rules.” At his answering, raised-brow stare, Sharon rolls her eyes, backs away from the counter. The conversation isn’t going anywhere she wants it to. In heading for the couch, she pauses to ask, “Why do you think I go to confession so much?”

His sharp laugh leaves a grin curling her lips. This isn’t a fight between them. There’s no reason to make it one. She settles onto the cushions, turns on the TV, scrolls the guide until a passable movie appears. It isn’t enough to reroute her attention.

Behind her, the clink of spoon on bowl gives way to the faucet’s rush and the dishwasher creaking open. Anticipating Andy’s path from the kitchen, she scoots closer to the arm and dislodges a pillow from her side. He drops into the spot seconds later.

Even so, he waits for a commercial to wade back into their earlier conversation. “Seems to me, working for the greater good at risk to his own comfort, is something Rusty probably picked up…” His eyes cast around the room, a show of nonchalance. “Oh, I dunno, _somewhere_.”

Sharon presses at his shoulder, swaying him away from her. “This is different.”

“Is it?” He holds her stare for a long moment. “I bet you he’d flush that scholarship down the drain in a second, if it meant saving even one more person from Stroh.”

“But he doesn’t _need_ to do that, Andy. It’s—” She growls, curls her fingers into tight fists before extending them flat. “It’s just so _wasteful_. He has everything laying ahead of him, all he needs to do is get through the summer, and—”

“Babe.” He folds his hands around hers, stilling them. “Nothing says he’s gonna screw anything up, in the long term, by talking to these people. And even if he does…” He trails off into a shrug. “It’d be a mistake for him to learn from, y’know?”

“I’m not the laissez faire type.”

His eyes fall closed with a soft laugh. “Yeah,” he presses his lips to her palm, “I’ve caught onto that, somewhere over the last 30 years or so.” The observation leaves her mouth curling, even if it doesn’t lift the weight from her chest. “Well, we got to work an actual murder all day today. So I’m beat.” He leans close, gives her a kiss. “Try not to be too hard on him.”

She snorts as he slides off the couch, headed for bed. “You _would_ say that.”

His answering, “I’ve been in his position too many times,” trails off down the hall.

The truth in his words leaves Sharon sighing. Though, if anything, it’s a decent reminder that conflict is only temporary, even as it’s sometimes unavoidable. In this case, it’s imminent, as well. The deadbolt clicks open before another ad break interrupts the movie she isn’t watching. She darkens the TV as she stands, makes her way around the couch to greet her son.

Rusty’s brow furrows when he finds her in the entryway. “Oh, hey Mom.”

“Hi.” She folds her arms across her chest. “How was your day?”

“Good. Busy.” He shrugs off his jacket. “Andrea was out sick, so we got a head start on stuff for next week.”

The late hour has sapped her patience for small talk. “I hear you’ve been seeking career advice at the courthouse.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he reaches into his bag, pulls out a directory with several lines highlighted. “I thought it’d be a good idea to meet with some of the judges, y’know, ask about their experiences.”

Sharon tugs the list from his fingers. The emphasized names leave her stomach aching. “Their experiences with Philip Stroh, specifically?” After scanning the page, she looks up to find his eyes wide, his jaw dropped. She forces a steel-lined smile. “Oh, you thought no one would piece together what you’re doing?”

“I-it’s not that—”

“No? Because I would’ve _loved_ to hear about this plan of yours ahead of time, so I might’ve been able to tell you how _wildly_ inappropriate and unprofessional it was.”

His eyes flit sideways. “It’s unprofessional to talk to judges?”

“Under these circumstances? Yes.” Sharon watches for any sign of recognition in Rusty’s expression. Troublingly, it doesn’t show. “I have a difficult time believing you don’t understand this, how your actions might reflect poorly on those of us who helped you gain access to those judges in the first place.” She lifts a hand when he opens his mouth. “But, if you can’t bring yourself to care about that, you need to be thinking about how these choices of yours might affect your admission to the California bar.” Her annoyance flares brighter when he rolls his eyes. “There’s an ethical component to it that I’m not sure you appreciate. In fact, I _know_ you don’t.”

“Mom, that’s like, four years from now.”

“Four years feels like forever for you, at this point, but it’ll be nothing to the evaluators in 2022 if you manage to get blackballed from the county courts building.”

His eyes widen. “Blackballed, I don’t—”

“That’s the direction you’re headed.” Sharon scans the list in her hand. “There are seven senior judges here. How many of them did you con into conversation?”

“I didn’t con anyone!”

“You came to them as a prospective lawyer, knowing full well you meant only to talk about Stroh. A con is _exactly_ what you pulled, Russell, and I am _not_ okay with it.” His face glows red. In his continued lack of answer, she prods. “How many?”

The silence stretches several seconds longer as he stares to his shoes. But eventually he mumbles, “All of them.”

“All of them,” she repeats, the words turning her blood cold, taking everything but a whisper. “Rusty.”

“Mom, I—” He crosses behind her, drops into a chair, pulls a sharp breath. And another. “I just,” his voice goes thick and shaky. “I can’t stop thinking about Burchell, about how Stroh could come after other people, too. I wasn’t going to wait for him to show up again before I did something.”

Sharon’s anger begins to pull away, like a tide. Even if his methods were questionable — as they so often are — it came from his worry. On that, she has no doubt.

She sinks to sit on the couch, taking a moment to gather her response. Circumstances are never black-or-white with him, she’ll give him that much. He’s more challenging, morality-wise, than Ricky and Emily combined.

“Two things,” she begins, holding a quieter but still firm tone. “First, you cannot, _cannot_ hold yourself responsible for Stroh’s victims, past or potential.” When he moves to speak, no doubt to argue, she lifts a silencing finger. “His decision to act, however he may do so, is his alone. Nothing you can say or withhold will change that. Okay?”

At his slow nod, she continues, “Second, you’re old enough to understand, now, that the actions you take have the potential to affect others, and to come back to you down the line. And an extreme action that seems necessary or right in the moment deserves some serious reflection before you pursue it. There are very few times in life to,” she snaps her fingers, “decide and go, without considering the repercussions first, _especially_ if you believe you need to do something wrong for a good reason.”

“But isn’t this the time to do _everything_? How can I just turn my back when people who knew Stroh are dying all over the place?”

“How do you think I’d get through, if I framed it like that? I stood on the other side of a door while he committed a murder and escaped.”

“But you didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Just like you don’t have anything to do with Burchell. That didn’t keep me from going over it, again and again, wondering if I could’ve done something differently. But I had to let the guilt go.” Her voice goes rough, considering the pain behind his actions. In many ways, it’s as familiar as her own shadow. “You are too young, you have too much ahead of you, to let this eat you alive.”

A long stretch of quiet passes between them before he heaves a sigh. “I don’t know how I just,” he gestures toward the door, “forget about the whole thing.”

“You don’t forget about it. What you’ll do is release the expectation that you can do anything to prevent Stroh’s next action.” She settles back into the cushions, crossing her arms. He won’t like what comes next. “And you’ll stop trying to find him.”

In the end, that’s what all of this is about. She’s ignored this truth for too long. He wants to face the threat himself, in some unnecessary, misguided show of bravery and bravado.

Rusty’s eyes widen. “But Mom—”

“It’s too dangerous. You’re a—” Sharon swallows the rest of her point. He isn’t a child anymore, even if he’s still _her_ child. “You don’t have the training.”

“So, what?” His chin shifts into a pout. “I just sit around and wait?”

“Yes, _you_ do that. You focus on your internship until August, then you go off to Berkeley, and you move forward.” She casts her hand in her bedroom’s direction. “Andy and I will make sure Stroh is handled.”

He answers with a stiff nod, but otherwise doesn’t protest. Whether he’s truly accepted the outcome is an issue for another day. She scoots to the edge of the cushion, moving to end the conversation, but Rusty’s dark look stops her.

“Um. There’s something else you should probably know, actually.”

The words leave her drawing a deep breath through her nose, bracing herself for whatever more he’s about to reveal. She releases the air in a rush before asking, “Oh?”

“Do you remember Simon Pitkin?”

“The name sounds familiar.”

“He’s the _Times_ reporter who wrote that feature on Stroh’s work back in the 90s.” Rusty swallows hard. “I tried to talk to him, too.”

A weight settles onto her shoulders. “You did.”

Rusty’s slow, downcast nod tells her the attempt wasn’t successful. “Now he’s working for some weird, smaller paper, down around Long Beach.” His hands knot together in his lap. “I tried calling down there, I don’t even remember how many times. When he finally picked up…” The words trail off on a shake of his head.

“What happened?”

His eyes fix skyward. “He said that _I_ ’ _d_ be a more interesting subject than Stroh, with my history and my family and what he called my ‘fixation’ on Burchell’s death.”

“Oh, Rusty.” Her earlier flash of outrage has burned off, leaving her tired and disappointed. She rubs at her temple. “Do you know what could happen, to all of us, if he publishes a story on you? Berkeley could revoke your scholarship. The LAPD could have grounds to open an internal investigation—”

An unexpected voice sounds behind her. “I’ve had worse, I don’t mind.”

Sharon angles around slowly, making her stare burn. “Andy…”

“What? The yelling stopped, I thought the coast was clear.” He holds up an empty glass, shrugs. “Anyway, if I get fired, it’s gonna be my own fault, believe me.” To Rusty, he says, “But hey, you see now why we can’t stand journalists, right?”

“I guess,” the answer is laced with misery, “you might’ve had a point.”

With her rebuke now derailed, Sharon glances between these wayward men of hers. She shakes her head, turns back to her son. “You need to start thinking before you act.” To her husband, she says, “God knows it’s too late for you.”

“Ooh, I haven’t even told you what happened today.” Andy smirks, headed for the kitchen. Over his shoulder, he says, “You woulda been so proud.”

Somehow, with that tone, she doubts it.


	11. Show 'em How it's Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A side avenue opens on the Burchell case, even as Williams shows his true colors.

“We have a wannabe opera singer with a slit throat.” Andy pauses, rinsing his razor under the faucet, before straightening and picking up his story, “Of course, she turned up at a house owned by an LLC, so—” as he rolls his hand in the air, a dollop of shaving cream flings onto the mirror. “Whoops.”

Before he has a chance for more of a reaction, Sharon grimaces, leans forward for a tissue, wipes it up. All without moving from her perch on the counter. “An LLC?”

“Thanks. And yeah,” he runs the blade down his cheek again. “So it took Hollywood a week or so to figure out that the murder scene _happens_ to be owned by a company that’s owned by the composer she was working with.” He shrugs. “Some movie score, I dunno.”

“He’s important enough to make it a major crime, I’m assuming.”

“Ding-ding-ding.” He glances over to find her wearing a faint smile. “Hey, you’re pretty good at this game. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were calling the shots for a while.”

This attempt at a joke earns nothing more than a level hum. After a long draw of coffee, she tilts her head into a question. “Why would this particular murder have made me proud of you, exactly?”

After enough of a delay to make him nervous, she’d asked about the comment he tossed out the end of last night’s ‘conversation’ with Rusty. “Oh, no. Not the case.” Andy tips his shoulder upward. “But the fact that we’re working it. Williams flat-out said we’re keeping it for good,” a smirk turns his mouth, “and that was after he had a nice, long heart-to-heart with Mason.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.” As much as he wants to drag out the punch line, he’s also running out of steps in his morning routine. He wipes the last flecks of foam from his face. “And _that_ happened after I had a solid chat with the Chief myself.”

Her eyes widen. “You did?”

“Yep. It was my reward, I guess, for not taking a swing at Williams while he was pushing my buttons.” Sharon fixes him with a classic over-the-glasses glare. “What? That’s what I thought you’d appreciate the most, out of all this.”

She doesn’t need to know the details on the button-pushing, he decided. It’s enough she knows he resisted it.

“Well, in a way I guess that’s true,” she admits. “What did you discuss with Leo?”

“First, we covered the nature of the stick Williams has wedged up his ass.” Andy chuckles when her nose wrinkles at this description. “Second, we talked about how Mason is clear that the Captain was a political hire, courtesy of Winnie Davis. Third, we touched on the Stroh case. About how I’m not dropping it, mostly, but then… he actually offered to help out.”

She sits up straighter. “Seriously?”

“Shocked the hell outta me, but yeah.” He rearranges his shaving kit in his drawer. “Said he’d reach out to other departments if we needed him to—”

“If _you_ needed him to, you mean.” Sharon stares into her coffee as she says it.

“You really think he’d offer to help, if it was just me? No way. I’m only the loudmouth he has to keep bailing out.” This seems to rally her mood. “This is at least 75 percent thanks to you. He even said how happy he was with the way Major Crimes was running before Williams showed up.”

“Well,” she sniffs, “it _was_ much less chaotic, when I was in charge.”

“That’s an understatement.” He leans over, presses a kiss to her hairline before backing out of the bathroom. “Mason sounded kinda miserable, frankly, having to deal with him.”

“I can imagine.” She trails him into the bedroom. “So Leo offered to help with Stroh…”

“Yeah, with other departments, but he also mentioned wanting to see the case back in active status.” He glances up from fastening his watch at his wrist. “Which is good, because I’m not sure there’s much left to do, unofficially.”

Sharon’s stare floats to the window. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

At the end of the day, Rusty had been doing all he could. But internet research on Stroh’s past associates turned potential victims does nothing to find the man himself. It also can’t answer the question of David Burchell’s death.

With this in mind, Andy claims the spot next to where she’s sunk onto the mattress. It probably isn’t the time to pile on bad news, but he knows it’ll come up sooner or later. “San Diego Homicide doesn’t want to hear from me anymore, as it turns out.”

She releases a sigh as she shakes her head. “Are they _really_ that devoted to the suicide theory?”

“I guess.” He shrugs. “Either that or they’re just dug in on principle.”

A long moment passes as the crease in Sharon’s brow deepens. “I told Rusty we’ll handle Stroh.” Her voice is a rough outline of its usual self. She turns to Andy. “Is that even possible?”

“Sure.” The answer comes to him without thought. He brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “Bottom line, Stroh’s a human being. He has needs, just like any of the rest of us.”

Recognition catches in her stare. “Food, shelter, transportation. How could he get across the country — how could he get back into the United States — without help?”

Andy nods. “My guess is he couldn’t. So I’ve been thinking, find his accomplice, find him.”

“Of course.” Sharon rests her mug on the nightstand as she slides off the bed, kicks off a halfhearted bout of pacing. “Then again, maybe he owes someone. Getting through the border undetected requires expertise.”

“I can put out feelers with the trafficking task force, see if any of their suspects admit to recognizing him.” Even the bottom feeders might be willing to talk if responsibility for several murders could be dumped on their shoulders. “But it’s the other option that makes me wonder, actually.”

“What other option?”

“That he managed to get over the border without strings.” He gestures toward the living room, where they’d first heard the details of Stroh’s escape, years ago. “I mean, we know he took off using his own resources, he could’ve gotten back that way, too.”

Sharon brings her fingers to her lips, considering the idea. When she breaks the silence, it’s with renewed focus. “Was Dana Point PD willing to speak with you?”

On a frown, he answers, “I never called them. San Diego took over the case right away since Burchell was one of theirs.”

“ _Oh_.” An unexpected grin — devilish, if he had to define it — turns her lips. “Well, to have such a high-profile case pulled out of their hands, no doubt after handling the preliminary footwork…” Her head tilts into a knowing question. “I wonder how they feel about that?”

The parallel smacks Andy in the face. Buried in a similar situation, how could he have missed it? “Probably not great.” He heads for the closet with a new drive. “In fact, I bet they were downright pissed.”

“Mhmm. _And_ ,” Sharon’s voice trails him, “they might even have a different view of the death, having professional distance from the victim.”

He mumbles a distracted, “No doubt,” while he scans his ties.

He’s only just touched one when she reaches past him, then presses an alternate into his hands. “The teal and green striped matches that shirt better.”

He rolls his eyes but accepts the advice. “How’d I ever dress myself, before I moved in here?”

“You did okay. Not as well as you do now.” She steps close, brings her lips to his. The kiss lingers longer than usual. It’s laced with hope. “Have a good day,” she says, patting his chest before pulling back. On her way to the bathroom, she adds, “Find me a lead.”

“Yes ma’am.”

In the office, though, Andy’s faced with the now-rare circumstance of being too busy with an actual case to spare much thought to Stroh. It’s not until after lunch, when he passes a uniformed figure near the breakroom, that he remembers the new angle he’s supposed to be chasing.

“Oh, Chief, can I have a minute?”

Mason stops, turns his wrist to glance at his watch. “Yes, but only one.” He nods down the hall, toward his office. “I have a call with Chief Pope at one.”

Andy falls into step with him. “I’ll be quick. You said yesterday that you’d contact another department on Stroh, if I needed it.”

“Yes I did.” His voice takes on a hint of dry humor. “Am I going to regret that?”

“Um, no, sir, I don’t think so.” When they come to the door leading to his assistant’s desk, Andy cuts to the chase. “I just haven’t had a chance to talk with the officers in Dana Point, to get their read.” He shrugs. “Might be useful to have a second opinion from them, on Burchell.”

The Chief gives him a measuring look. “I’ll see what I can do.”

It isn’t the most encouraging response, but it’s not like Andy could expect much more. He figures he should give Mason a shot to make good on his word, anyway.

Back in the Murder Room, Mike is crowing, holding up an old iPhone. “A burner is only useful for the bad guys if _we_ don’t get our hands on it.”

Near the board, Wes cracks, “You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, yeah, Boy Wonder.” Provenza cranes around to look at him. “I’m sure you’re the first cop to ever walk out of a search warrant with a cell phone in hand.”

“To be fair,” Buzz says, “it _was_ hidden behind a headboard.”

“It was plugged in!” Provenza points to his own phone, laying on his desk. “Even I could’ve figured that one out.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Mike drawls, “a burner is also only as good as its PIN, and the owner’s birthdate is an obvious choice.” He wiggles the phone back and forth. “I got into its Gmail app.” Leaned over to click his mouse, he asks, “Ah, Andy, can you get the lights?”

“Sure.” He reaches over from his spot along the wall to flip the switch.

In the half-dark, a projection of the burner’s screen shows up on the white board.

“Zabala, supposed prodigy that he is, is smart.” Mike grins. “But not smart enough.” The image moves downward. “You see, most of these messages are personal.” He pulls the image down four or five times, giving glimpses of text fit for an X-rated movie, before stopping at a subject line that’s much more boring. “He crossed the streams!”

Provenza squints over at him. “Huh?”

Mike points to the normal message, with the subject _Lease Signing_. “Zabala wanted to keep his LLC secret. He wanted to keep his many affairs secret. What he shouldn’t have done,” he places his arms into an ‘x’ shape, “is try to keep them all secret in the same place!” With a shake of his head, he adds, “Burners are so cheap, he should’ve just used more than one.”

“Okay, Mike.” Andy steps further into the room. “Now we know what to look for when digging up _your_ secret life,” he nods to the board, “but what does that have to do with Zabala?”

“Well,” Amy beats him to the punch, “his assistant was the only other person with access to the LLC documents. So maybe she knew about the email account, too.”

With a point and a grin in her direction, Mike says, “Precisely.”

“So, what, was this guy banging _her_ , too?”

One by one, each member of the squad turns toward the side entrance to the Murder Room, where Williams has appeared. Provenza clears his throat. “That’s undetermined, Captain.”

“But the goal is?” His face creases into a grimace. “You’re working to prove the innocence of the perp we _already_ have in lock-up?”

“We’re trying to figure out who killed Elina Platzya,” Andy grits.

“Sir,” Julio’s voice is tight with forced politeness. “Right now, we have Zabala for money laundering, so he isn’t going anywhere. He’s a criminal, but that doesn’t make him a murderer.”

“Only slitting Elina’s throat would’ve done that,” Mike nods, “and he does have an alibi.”

“Oh, yeah, and he’s _so_ trustworthy, too.” Williams scoffs as he retreats into his office. “You loop me in when you’re ready to add murder to those finance charges.”

Silence falls over the room for a long moment filled with glares and shaking heads. At his desk, Provenza claps his hands, breaking the quiet. “Okay, so, burner phone, numerous affairs, and the LLC. Do we have anything else?”

“Our friends at the FBI Legat in Madrid confirmed that Zabala’s wife is still in the country.” Andy can’t help but chuckle as he adds, “Sounds like she’s probably gonna stay there, too, now that she heard what’s going on with her other half.”

“So we’re down another suspect.” Provenza crosses Yesenia Zabala’s name off the board. “What do we know about the assistant?”

“Her name is Chelsea Bronson, she’s 28. No priors, clean arrest history,” Wes reads from a printout. “Other than that, not much.”

Provenza holds out his arms. “Let’s fix that.”

It’s their focus for the rest of the day, writing warrants, dredging financials, analyzing phone records. What they find leaves enough questions to justify an interview tomorrow. Williams doesn’t make another appearance until they’re packing in for the evening, just after six.

“Ready to cuff up Zabala yet?”

Again, the squad exchanges a series of tense stares. Provenza forces a grin and speaks for the collective. “Not yet, Captain.”

Andy shakes his head, mutters, “I’ll see you guys by the elevators,” as he heads for the breakroom. He doesn’t need to stick around for a session of Remedial Homicide Investigation. On his way to grab his lunch — uneaten thanks to winning-bet burritos — he scrolls his phone for the emails he’d ignored all afternoon.

One line catches his attention. From one Leo Mason, the subject reads, _Dana Point PD._ He taps it open.

_Lieutenant,_

_I spoke with Dana Point Chief of Police Grant Halley today. He indicated you should contact Captain Heather Walker (copied above) for any questions regarding the David Burchell investigation._

_\- Mason_

An impressed “huh” sneaks from Andy’s mouth. Turns out the Chief isn’t just true to his word. He’s prompt about it, too.

With less than half his attention devoted to tucking Tupperware under his arm and making his way toward the elevators, he sifts through the newer messages, finding one from an H. Walker.

Titled _Burchell_ , the email holds a single line: _I_ ’ _d be happy to discuss the case, or what’s left of it, tomorrow morning._

The message, as direct as it is, leaves Andy grinning. There’s definitely some grievances to mine in Dana Point. But approaching his coworkers, who are busy with a low conversation, he stashes the phone in his pocket.

Standing close to Provenza, Julio scowls. “…saying we should just charge the first guy we arrest, sir? It’s insulting.”

The topic isn’t hard to figure out. “We should let him have his way,” Andy mutters, “He’ll be the laughingstock of the whole fucking building.”

“Yeah, and us along with him.” Provenza gestures toward the ding of an arriving car. “The kicker about playing hot potato with a hand grenade is that you’ll still be nearby, if not holding the damned thing, when it goes off.”

Andy’s about to ask what, exactly, the grenade’s supposed to represent in this scenario, when he notices a face missing from the group. “Where’s Sykes?”

Wes points back to the Murder Room. “Ah, the Captain said something about needing to talk with her.”

The words might as well send ice water through his veins. “Shit.” This is the exact situation he swore he’d guard against, and it happened right under his nose. He backs away from the elevators, then turns in the direction he’d just come from.

His partner’s voice echoes down the hall behind him. “Flynn, what’s going on?”

“Uh, I gotta tell her something, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He only slows long enough to key back into the Murder Room.

Around the corner, Andy sighs to find Amy sitting at her desk, a little stiffer than usual, but seemingly fine. “Sykes, what’s up?”

Her eyes flick to the back office before she turns to him. “The Captain has asked that I classify and sort the emails in Zabala’s secondary email account.”

Andy glares to a preoccupied Williams, engrossed with paperwork at his desk. “Tonight?”

“Yes.”

She’s tense, that much is obvious. Even if their attempts have come to a dead end so far, it’s clear that Amy has seen everything Sharon has dug up on the Captain, and it’s enough to make her wary. That he’d keep her after everyone else, just to look through God knows how many explicit, sleazy emails, says more about the situation than Andy wants to untangle.

Right now, he just wants to fix it.

He rounds Provenza’s desk and pulls Julio’s chair out. “How many messages are in there?”

“About a thousand.”

“Damn,” he grunts as he settles into the unfamiliar seat. “I’ll start from the earliest, if you want to get the latest.”

Amy’s eyes cut toward Williams. “But—”

He crooks a smile. “Jeez, Sykes, c’mon. Don’t make me order you around.”

She swallows hard, but says, “Alright, Lieutenant.” The slightest of grins flashes across her face. “I can do that.”

“Okay.” While waiting for the laptop to log him in, he shoots a text to Sharon.

_It_ ’ _s gonna be a late night. Don’t wait up._

He saves a copy of the spreadsheet Amy created for the work, then sets into it. The job is simple enough: list the sender’s address, personal or professional, on to the next. Andy’s through more than 200 messages before a nearly unrecognizable, creepy tone breaks his concentration.

“How’s it go—” The question cuts off, no doubt when Williams realizes Amy isn’t alone. His voice whips back to its usual grittiness. “Flynn, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Helping with the email review, Captain, what’re _you_ doing here?” He doesn’t bother looking up from the screen.

“My _job_ ,” Williams snits. Clicking and typing fills the quiet before he adds, “I’ve only been approved to have one officer working overtime on this case.”

_Bullshit_. Andy trades a glance with Amy, over their computers. That isn’t how OT works, and all three of them know it. But rather than call out the lie, he shrugs. “That’s okay,” he turns, meeting the Captain’s stare. He holds it, firm, letting his determination sink in. _I see what you_ ’ _re doing, you fucker,_ Andy wants the look to say. _You_ ’ _re not gonna win here._

Instead of giving voice to that, he says, “I’m happy to pitch in so the Detective doesn’t have to be here all night.”

“Wow, great.” Williams falls back onto his old refrain. “Your sense of initiative finally makes an appearance.” The words fade as he moves into his office. The lights within blink out. He leaves without another word, stalking across the room.

Andy makes it through twenty or so more emails before Amy says, “You didn’t have to do this.” Her voice is low, even though their boss is long gone.

“Yeah, I did, actually.” He leans back, stretching his shoulders. “On this team, we don’t work alone.” Meeting her eyes, he adds, “Partially because we don’t face threats alone.”

She clears her throat. “I can deal with this myself, Lieutenant.”

_God, how many times have I heard that one?_ What is it, with these badass women in his life? The familiar line leaves his mouth tilting into a lopsided grin. “Yeah, but you don’t have to.” This time, he adds onto his standard response, “You _shouldn_ ’ _t_ have to.”

He twists around, double checking for unexpected movement in the office’s dark corners. After finding nothing, he pushes the computer closed. “C’mon, Sykes. We’ll have a good two hours to finish this crap before the Captain shows his face tomorrow morning.”

She meets the offer with a beat of hesitation, but gives in without more convincing. They walk to the garage together, chatting about anything other than what Williams could’ve been planning tonight.

That doesn’t mean it’s out of Andy’s mind, though. In fact, the potentials burn there. It’s still smoldering when he gets home. Even as he fills the coffeemaker for tomorrow, his hatred for Williams, for the circumstances they’ve all been forced into, fume through him.

Hands wrap around his waist, leaving him tensing. A warm pressure find his upper back a blink later, and recognition slackens him.

“Sorry.” Sharon’s voice is muffled against his shirt. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You’re fine.” A glance to the stove clock says it’s after 11. “Why are you up?”

“Heard you come in.” She yawns. “You going to eat?”

“I’m good. I had my lunch for dinner.” At the question posed by an upward hum, he says, “Buzz lost a bet, so it was El Milagro for everyone.”

“Oh.” Sharon stifles her laugh against him, like Buzz would be able to see her laughing from here. “So, who’s dating this time?”

“Nah, this was a Williams bet.” The thought sends nausea rising through Andy, where his earlier anger scorched a path. He clenches his jaw. None of it is funny, anymore.

A nudge leaves him craning around as she asks, “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or do I have to pry it out of you?”

A ghost of a laugh escapes him on a breath. “As fun as that sounds…” He turns, cups her face in his palms. He brushes his lips to hers.

The calm in the moment is almost enough to break his heart, knowing he’s about to ruin what’s left of her night.

But her features fold into a deeper question, pushing him forward. He sighs. “You should know that Williams tried to keep Amy alone in the Murder Room tonight.”

Sharon’s stare glints hard even as water gathers there. She sucks a quick breath. “He did?” Without giving him space to answer, she shakes her head. “That’s why you’re late.”

“Yeah.” He pulls her close, giving her a second to process before saying, “Whatever you’ve found on Williams, he isn’t over it. He’s still the same guy he was before.”

But Andy will be damned if that asshole lays a single finger on Sykes.


	12. Raised Within a Purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon meets with Williams' first accusers while Andy gets details on Burchell from Dana Point.

The news Andy brought home makes it impossible for Sharon to sleep. Even after they discuss the situation in depth — what, exactly, he saw, what she mostly _hasn_ ’ _t_ found — the threat of Williams’ behavior hangs overhead like a specter.

On the surface, it’s nothing. That might be the worst part. The easy minimization could explain how he’s risen as far as he has. There could be any number of at least semi-reasonable excuses for holding Amy back in the office. But the recollections from Bree Birkhoff and Raquel Stewart, along with the list Brad shared, send the incident into ‘warning sign’ territory.

 _Williams doesn_ ’ _t know that Amy knows anything_. And, being familiar with the man’s ego, he likely assumes she doesn’t have a clue. He might as well be lightyears from Harbor, after all, and no one has caught up with him thus far.

Sharon pushes a sigh and angles forward to check the clock. _3:12._ With deep, even breaths flowing from Andy, she’s satisfied he’s out. She slips away from him with slow, gentle motions, taking care to avoid jostling the mattress too much. He stays still when she pauses next to the bed. _Success._

He’ll be annoyed to find her gone when his alarm goes off, but it’s for the best. Her mind is too busy to settle. In the living room, she grabs her laptop and arranges it on a pillow atop her crossed legs on the sofa. After it boots up, she clicks into a folder she hasn’t opened in months: _NW_background_.

The news about Burchell hadn’t been a distraction from Sharon’s work on Williams. It was more of a welcome detour, given how her best lead refused to talk. The path forward from there looked like an unmarked trail. The first, and so far only, document saved to the folder is the 1995 _Times_ article on Janice Darrows and Denise Murphy — the former Hollywood patrol officers who successfully filed a complaint against then-Sergeant Williams for his use of demeaning language.

Now more than ever, Sharon is curious about what separates these women from the much larger group of officers who submitted, then retracted, allegations.

She opens a browser, begins searching for a Janice Darrows located in California. By 5:30, she has a likely Facebook page with a friend request sent. Again, and with some guilt, she falls back to referencing her nonexistent project on the history of women in the LAPD. It’s not a full lie, she _is_ researching past events that affected women, after all. But it’ll quickly become clear to Janice and Denise that she’s seeking a very specific history.

It’s a risk she’s willing to take.

The couch sinks at Sharon’s side. She glances over to find Andy bleary, rubbing at his face. With amusement sneaking into the words, she says, “Good morning.”

“Uh-huh.” He pairs this unconvincing response with a lift of his chin toward the screen. “What’s that?”

“Don’t you have your contacts in?” she teases.

“No. Too early.”

She ruffles his hair. “I don’t see how—” a laugh bubbles out of her at this unintentional pun, but she finishes, “you can stand to walk around like that.”

“I’m not _blind_. Not yet, anyway.” Andy lifts his feet onto the coffee table. Sharon’s eyes track the motion, but she remains quiet. It’s a habit she had to learn to accept, in the spirit of cohabitual compromise. “Why’re you up so early?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” She closes the laptop, moves it to the end table so she can curl around to face him. “I thought it was better to use that time to move forward.”

“Forward how?”

“By trying to interview the only two women who I know, for certain, filed complaints against Williams.”

His brow furrows. “That would be something, yeah, but what more would it tell you about him?”

“How he reacted to the allegations, for one. How he behaved beforehand, the station’s culture overall. I also wonder how he may or may not have changed afterward, though he was reassigned to Harbor at that time, so…”

In the quiet left by her trailed-off words, Andy answers with a slow nod. “I hope it gets you somewhere.”

“Me too.”

That sentiment hangs in the air for a moment before he says, “Oh, I forgot to tell you…” He breaks into a grin. “Mason came through yesterday.”

“How so?”

“He called the Dana Point chief. Got me the email address of, I guess, the captain running what’s left of the Burchell case there.”

Sharon exhales a relieved sigh. “That’s great news.”

“Yeah,” he smirks as he slides off the couch. “Even better, I get the impression she has a lot to say.” With a hand held out, he crooks his head toward the kitchen. “C’mon, I owe you a coffee.”

As she allows him to help her up, a perplexed grin turns her features. “For what?”

“Giving me a great lead, for starters.” He pulls her close to his side as they meander onward. His lips press into her hair. “Otherwise, just for being my favorite person.”

She used to tense, at moments like this. Sharon had been conditioned for decades to expect spoken affection only when it was meant to buy her consent or her forgiveness. Combined with her too-close familiarity with Andy’s capacity for troublemaking, it took months for her to understand that he’d detail how much he loves her just because it’s Tuesday, or because it’s overcast, or because he thinks she needs to hear it, not because he wants anything in return.

That’s not to say it doesn’t often earn him some positive attention, though.

Here, it’s a soft laugh, a kiss smoothed to his neck. While he fills two mugs, Sharon asks, “When are you supposed to call the Dana Point captain?”

“Ah, 6:30.”

She hums. “You should probably get moving, then.”

“I’m calling her from here.” The corners of Andy’s mouth dip into a casual frown. “Figured you’d want to hear it.”

“You’re going to have me _eavesdrop_ on your conversation with another department?”

He waggles his brows at her. “Spousal privilege.”

Sharon’s nose wrinkles. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“So you don’t wanna know what’s going on?”

“I didn’t say _that_. I just don’t want to violate the trust of another officer.”

“Huh.” After taking a sip of coffee, Andy admits, “I guess that’s a good point.” He backs away from the counter. “I’m gonna go get ready.”

By the time he’s done in the bathroom and Sharon’s had her turn, he’s finished the call and has moved onto breakfast. “Short and sweet,” he explains over a bowl of oatmeal, “the best kind of coordination, in my book.”

She settles across from him. “What’s the verdict?”

“They’re not sold on the suicide theory. Neither is the Orange County Coroner, for what it’s worth. Burchell’s cause of death is officially undetermined.”

“That’s important.” Sharon rests her chin in her palm. “What do they have that contradicts him taking his own life?”

“For one, his schedule was booked up for the following few weeks. Dana Point got into his Apple account, found all kinds of parties, meetings, charity stuff. He was the head planner in charge of a fundraiser for special advocates in San Diego.”

“Of course, that alone doesn’t prove anything.”

“No, but it’s a sign.” Andy taps at the next line of his notes. “Then there’s his family.”

Movement in the hall marks the start of Rusty’s day. Sharon delays her next question until the bathroom door snicks shut. “What did they say?”

“Burchell had been on his way to visit his sister for the weekend, in Oxnard, when he took a detour into Dana Point. She started calling around when he didn’t show up by midnight.” Andy’s brow creases when he takes a bite of oatmeal, glances back to the paper. “Afterward, his parents were surprised when they tried to settle his estate.”

“They found less than they were expecting.”

He scoops up the last of his breakfast, shrugging. “Walker didn’t give details on it, but that’s what I’d guess.”

Sharon’s eyes drift to the patio door. If true, a movement of funds could point toward motive. “That would’ve been a brazen choice on the killer’s part.” She turns back to Andy. “Why set up what appears to be a suicidal death, only to leave behind evidence suggesting it wasn’t suicide at all?”

“Desperation is a helluva thing.” He shrugs. “Or maybe his dying wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Still. The finances alone are enough to run with.” She rubs at her temple. “What in the world was San Diego thinking? Money is motive…”

“And money leaves a trail,” Andy finishes. He stands, stretches, carries his empty bowl to the kitchen. “I asked Walker if she could send over the transaction histories for Burchell’s known accounts. She balked at first, but ended up saying she’d think about it.”

The possibility of a path forward on Stroh snags in Sharon’s attention, though only briefly. Rusty’s appearance in the kitchen turns conversation toward other topics. By the next afternoon she’s neck-deep in her _other_ project, standing on the porch of a well-kept ranch house in West Covina, exchanging warm greetings with Janice Darrows.

“You said you’re a commander?” Janice asks after inviting her inside.

“Well, I _was_ , yes—”

“Nonsense. You go out with the rank, you keep it.” She gestures down a sun-filled hallway before entering it. “Me? I was destined to stay on patrol. I liked that it was straightforward, liked being hands-on. Plus, I never personally knew a woman who got past sergeant. Sure, there were a couple token lieutenants that you’d hear about, but a commander?” Janice lets out an unbelieving _pssh_ as she settles at a table, nodding toward an empty seat at her side.

With her face warming, Sharon lowers into the chair. “There’ve been a few deputy chiefs too.”

“Oh, right. I guess I saw that, near the end of my time in.” She taps at a laptop. “Even ran into that gal from Atlanta, once, when I was posted up at a murder scene.”

Sharon twists her would-be grin into a knot of pursed lips, taking a moment to fight off a laugh before asking, “Did you?”

“Talk about a ball-buster.” Janice whistles low. “She had my attention from go, and those detectives of hers… she had ‘em in line.” She frowns, thoughtful. “I couldn’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like, to have a boss like _that_.”

The best response Sharon finds is a level hum. It’s impossible to measure the gap between the Neil Williamses and Brenda Johnsons of the world.

From the computer, though, a tinny voice asks, “Like what?”

“Like ‘not a dick,’ Murph.” Janice turns the screen to point between her and Sharon. “This is the lady I was telling you about.”

“Ah.” Denise Murphy leans closer to the camera on her end of the connection, sending the gold-tone frames of her glasses glinting in an overhead light. “Wanting to know about Sergeant Williams, yeah?”

Sharon had given up the con. It hadn’t taken much conversation with Janice to get her to fold. “Yes,” she says, “I saw an article about your case against him.”

Denise chuckles. “Must’ve been looking hard. That was more than 20 years ago, now.”

“That’s true.” Sharon stretches on a tight smile. “Unfortunately, those events appear to still hold relevance today.”

She launches into the same unsettling story she’s told several times, about Neil Williams’ ascension to the rank of captain, his new position leading Major Crimes, the trail of rescinded allegations and whispered warnings left in his wake. Janice and Denise meet the list with shaking heads and the unmistakable click of tongues on teeth.

In the end, Janice offers a familiar assessment: “I always knew that guy was a creep. I just figured he’d be dealt with by now.” She nods to Sharon. “I mean, how can the same agency that had a woman leading its best unit follow up by putting _that_ in charge?”

“I’ll tell you how,” Denise answers. “It’s because _they_ , the men at the top, don’t believe women. Or they do, in some way, but just don’t think what they’re dealing with is a big deal.”

Janice stares out the window placed across the table, open onto a stretch of green grass. A chorus of chirping birds fills the air before her mouth dips into a frown. “I can’t imagine. I mean,” she looks back to her former partner, “even with only dealing with our situation, I stopped wanting to go to work.”

“I wouldn’t say you were _only_ dealing with anything,” Sharon says. She taps at the notebook she’s unfolded on the table. “In fact, just so I can better understand his behavior, do you mind telling me anything you can recall about the period in which Williams was your supervisor?”

“Well,” Denise’s voice crackles across the speakers, “from the get-go, I remember the atmosphere under him, how it changed right away.” She peers forward. “Jan, who was the sergeant before him?”

“Started with a ‘D.’ Daniels, Donaldson, something like that.”

“Right. Well, the reason we can’t remember him is because he was fine. Not exceptional, not an ass. Did his job, was fair about it.” Denise rolls her hand in mid-air. “Williams came in and right away, it was a clubhouse vibe.”

“He found his ‘boys’ in the first week, probably.” Janice nods. “It was so disappointing, seeing the ones who went along with it.”

Sharon asks, “What do you mean?”

“We had a great, tight-knit squad before he showed up. Murph and I were the only women, but that didn’t matter. The guys accepted us. They had our backs.” Janice reaches over to a sideboard, pulls a crinkled stack of papers from its surface. “Look,” she hands it to Sharon, “we were a big family.”

Stapled along the left side, the once white paper now leans toward beige. Along the top, a blocky font reads, “HOLLYWOOD HAPPENINGS.” It’s a division newsletter, Sharon realizes, the kind Parker Center pushed as a morale booster in the early 90s. She has a few of her own, still, tucked into file boxes in her storage unit.

On this one, below the headlines, a photo is printed in poor quality dotted black ink. But it’s detailed enough to make out young Janice and Denise, holding up evidence bags full of _something_ , part of a line of uniformed officers doing the same. They’re all beaming.

The bag in Janice’s hand has been circled with black marker, with a note pointing to it. _Pointer, you come out of this looking like a kingpin. Well played._

Janice taps at the writing. “That was from Joey Myers.” She chuckles. “He called me ‘Pointer’ because he thought for a long time my name was ‘Arrows.’”

Denise clears her throat. “Too bad he was one of ‘em.”

“Yeah,” Janice’s mood sinks.

“How so?” Sharon asks.

“He went from being cool with us to laughing it up with Williams, telling us that having our boss call us ‘bitches’ in roll call wasn’t a big deal.” Denise lifts a shoulder. “That had a lot to do, I think, with Williams saying he’d take Myers under his wing, which he did, along with a few other guys.”

“Yeah, they’d get some perks. Williams would always give them leave without question, first dibs at trainings downtown, that kind of thing.” With her arm extended, Janice points at a few faces on the old photo. “That’s Myers, and then the other two of Williams’ favorites were Paul Perez and Mick Torres.” Her finger moves to a third. “Troy Dassin was in there, too, but he was a boot, fresh out of the Academy.”

“But we were lucky,” Denise says.

Sharon frowns, “Lucky how?”

“We still had five of ‘em on our side. And those guys _did_ back us up, when we went to IA.”

“Yeah, Williams was anything but subtle.” Janice squints, as if she’s examining a point in the distance. “I mean, he definitely pushed it _more_ when it was just the two of us, or one of us alone, but—”

Finding the conversation veering into deeper territory, Sharon leans forward. “In what way?”

“Hm?”

“How did he push it more, when you weren’t with the rest of your squad?”

“Oh, well, he’d…”

As Janice trails off, Denise offers an example: “He’d tell us how worthless we were as cops, for starters.”

“That’s true. I can’t even remember how many times he told me I shouldn’t have been there, working patrol.”

“He told _me_ I needed to work out some of my empathy by having babies,” Denise scoffs. “My girlfriend got a real kick outta that.”

After making note of these incidents, Sharon asks, “Did he, by chance, ever threaten you physically?”

“ _Hell_ no.” The answer, from Denise, comes on a laugh. “He was kinda scrawny, I probably could’ve taken him.”

Janice’s response, though, is slower in emerging. “It wasn’t a threat, exactly…”

Where Sharon is content to give her several seconds, her partner presses. “Wait, what are you talking about, Jan?”

To the webcam, she says, “He grabbed me once, In his office.”

“ _What?!_ ” Denise’s rage rumbles from the speakers. “You never told me that!”

Janice looks to her lap. “I was embarrassed. I didn’t know how I could’ve let that happen to myself, how I could’ve gotten into that situation to begin with.”

“I would’ve shot him in the crotch.”

On a glare, Janice says, “No kidding. Why do you think I never told you?”

The conversation is familiar enough that Sharon has to flatten a sad grin. But Denise’s next point leaves her sobering in full.

“So instead, he’s still in the LAPD, higher on the totem pole than ever, and still doing the same old shit, maybe worse.”

“It seems that might be the case,” Sharon says, “but the only parties to blame for that are Williams himself and, to a lesser extent, departmental leadership. No one else.” She considers the notes she’s written so far, and broaches another essential question. “When he figured out you made the complaint, how did he react?”

“Oh,” Denise draws the sound out low. “He was red as a beet, walking into our next roll call.”

“But,” Janice adds, “he laid off on the language. He more or less stopped talking to us altogether, which was an improvement.”

“And after the investigation corroborated your claims?”

Janice and Denise trade thoughtful looks. The former explains, “From my memory, he never came back to the station after word came down.”

“Yep,” Denise agrees. “I never saw him again, after that.”

Sharon notes this before asking, “Did you ever hear _of_ him again? Anyone else who had similar issues with his conduct?”

With a shake of her head, Janice says, “No, I didn’t.”

“You know, I heard his name once, years later, from a woman who was on my team for Baker to Vegas.” Denise rubs at her chin. “We chatted quite a bit during those runs, and while we were trading complaints we figured out we had Williams in common.”

Leaning forward, Sharon asks, “Do you remember her name?”

“It was Pam. Um… not sure about her last name, but I can dig through my old race stuff and see if I can find her, if you want.”

“That would be incredibly helpful, thank you.” Sharon folds her notebook closed. “Otherwise, those are all the questions I have for you.”

They pass a bit more time with pleasant small talk. The former partners have remained close, and they’re a treasure trove of memories dating back to an era when women were treated as a novelty on the force. Their stories mirror Sharon’s, in places. The parallels leave an odd twist of nostalgia and regret twisting between her shoulder blades as she climbs into her car, recollections of long-past choices she might’ve made differently.

With the engine humming, she checks her mirrors and pulls into the street. In a blink, a red BMW swoops into her path. Sharon jams her foot to the brake pedal, drawing short of the other car’s bumper by inches. Her heart beats an incessant rhythm in her throat.

“What the hell?”

Before the words fully pass her lips, she catches sight of the driver. A bulk of curly blonde hair wrapped into a bun. The glint of blue mirrored lenses as she twists in her seat to look through the rear window. A neon pink t-shirt completes the familiar aesthetic.

 _It can_ ’ _t be_.

But the few seconds before the car peels off down the street, Sharon reaches under the passenger side dashboard, where the contents of her bag landed when she stopped. She straightens with one target in mind as the BMW begins moving.

 _9SW3._ The plate’s first four figures are all Sharon can make out before it disappears around a corner. She jots these, and the other details: _CA plate, red 428I. West Covina, 2:49PM, 6/21/2018_.

She pulls a deep breath, then another. In an attempt to piece together what happened, she inches forward, finding the driveway the car must’ve appeared from. It’s another nondescript, postwar house in a nondescript eastern suburb. The appearance of a wide grill and headlights in her rear-view cut the moment short. Sharon’s fingers tremble as she steers back to the freeway. Her mind spins with rationalizations.

 _It can_ ’ _t be the same woman. It just can’t. I’m miles from home, in a place I’ve never been before. It’s a coincidence._

_That, and bad driving._

Still, the time she spends crawling through traffic and reciting logical explanations to herself can’t erase the intuition rippling through her, like a stone dropped into a lake. It’s there, it’s undeniable, even if it might be foolish. The only question is how to handle it.

With several choices laid before her, reason rules supreme. Every attempt to shape these “sightings” into words, into the kind of statement she’d have to provide to her former colleagues for their help, drives her further away from doing so. There’s no threat, yet. There’s nothing about this that she can’t handle.

Back at home, Sharon’s distracting herself with the evening news when the lock in the front door clicks open, followed by a firm assertion: “David Burchell died broke.”

This greeting leaves her lifting a brow, twisting away from the TV. “What?”

“Dana Point agreed to send the financials over.” Andy flops onto the couch at her side, not bothering to shed his jacket first. “I might not be a guru, but I can piece together enough to figure out his accounts were nearly drained. Checking, savings, retirement, investment, each had only a couple hundred bucks left.”

“I’m guessing that was out-of-character for him, if the balances concerned his family when they saw them.”

“I dunno, but,” he gets up, goes back to the entryway before returning. “Just look at this…”

He opens a folder onto her lap. Before Sharon can absorb any of the lines of numbers splayed across the page, a line of bolded, all-caps text at the very top of the paper catches her eye. The words send her flipping the package closed again.

“These are marked Law Enforcement Sensitive, Andy—”

“The money people slap LES on everything, c’mon.”

“I can’t.” She presses the folder away, into his chest. “If this all goes to court one day, and I pray to God it does, every element of the official investigation needs to be absolutely airtight.” She lifts her thumb to his cheek, softening the denial. “I want you to be able to take the stand and tell Stroh’s defense that you never shared evidence improperly.”

He swallows hard. “ _Never_?”

Sharon looks skyward. “Not on this particular case.”

A heavy sigh marks his acceptance. “Fine.” He tosses the file onto the coffee table, rubs at his eyes. “I’ll give you the high points. For the three months before his death, Burchell drained 3,000 bucks a week from one of his five accounts. He’d rotate through each of them. Then, two weeks prior to his trip in Dana Point, there were a series of larger transfers from all of his accounts at once. And I do mean _large_. Those left him down to bare bones, though not in the red, and the accounts were still open.”

“So the question, then, is what did he do with the money?”

“Yeah.” Andy shrugs. “It’s impossible to get a read on that, without more information.”

He’s right, but it’s still more than they had two days ago. “It’s a start,” Sharon says. “It’s a direction.”

Having spilled his big news, he reaches for her hand and cups it between both of his. “I’ve been wondering whether I should loop someone else in on this. Mike, specifically.” He lifts his chin toward the discarded folder. “He might be able to translate some of the lines in that transaction history.”

She meets the idea with a hum. “His expertise would be useful, no question, but are you ready for _all_ of them to know what’s going on?” When his features fold into a frown, she adds, “Not that Mike would _tell_ the rest of the squad, but taking it to the office almost ensures that word will get around, especially if he uses LAPD tools to work his magic.”

His attention drifts long enough to show he’s considering the question seriously. After a slow nod, he says, “I get what you’re saying, but I think it’s time. Plus having cover from Mason is gonna help.”

“Just…” she reaches out, pats his chest. “Don’t let it interfere with your current work. Don’t use it to bypass Williams’ choice of cases.”

“I won’t.” Andy manages to work only the slightest hint of indignation into this response. “But speaking of Williams, how was your trip to the ‘burbs?”

With the change in topic, Sharon stands from her seat. “I’ll fill you in while we make dinner?”

“Deal.”


	13. Sanctuary Never Comes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Mike works his magic on Burchell's finances, Doctor Morales introduces the squad to a new case.

“It’s Liberium!”

Mike’s confident answer to Burchell’s accounts is Andy’s early morning greeting to the Murder Room. It does nothing to clear his confusion. “Huh?”

A lack of caffeine doesn’t help. He’d still been on his first mug when his phone rattled against the countertop, carrying news of a breakthrough. That’s to Mike’s credit, though. He’s had the Burchell file in hand for less than 12 hours, and any work he put in was after an evening spent ringing up Chelsea Bronson for murder.

“C’mon,” Mike picks up his laptop and the folder, leaving Andy to trail him back into the hall he’d just left. Julio watches them leave with a dark stare.

Andy ignores that, waits until they’re beyond the office to say, “I can’t believe you figured it out already.”

“Ah, well,” After a peek into an interview room, Mike heads inside. He settles facing the windows, gesturing to the seat at his side. “I’ve pieced together as much as I can.”

“Better than what I had, no doubt.” Andy closes the door and sinks into the offered chair. “So what was that you said, before?”

“Liberium. It’s a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin.”

Andy still isn’t sure what to do with this information. “Okay…”

“Digitial currency, cryptographically secured. It’s a relative newcomer in the space.” Mike holds up his thumb and forefinger, with a tiny gap between. “Very niche. I’ve never seen it used in the wild, so to speak.”

“Uh-huh.” Andy crosses his arms, considers this dark-horse quality. As if bitcoin isn’t rare enough as it is. “If it’s uncommon, why would someone like Burchell, or anyone else, use it instead of something more mainstream?”

“As it turns out, he _started_ with a relatively common currency called Litecoin.” Mike pats the folder. “These records show him purchasing three thousand dollars’ worth of it at a time, from a well-known online exchange.”

“But that’s not this Liberium you were talking about.”

“No.” He casts his arms wide, suggesting something large. “The beauty of standard cryptocurrencies, for us, are the ledgers. They’re publicly available lists of every transaction made using the coin in question, used to verify and legitimize who owns what.”

Andy squints at him. “That seems too easy.”

“Don’t worry,” Mike chuckles, “it gets harder.” He clicks around on the computer, pulling up a window full of what looks like gibberish. “These lists are pseudononymous, so they won’t say, ‘David Burchell acquired 23 Litecoin on March 20th.’ But every Litecoin owner has at least one wallet, and each of those wallets are denoted by a long string of text,” he highlights a row on the screen, “as listed in the ledger.”

The visual helps to piece the explanation together. The result isn’t promising. “So Burchell isn’t a name in here, or an account number. He’s one of,” Andy nods to the computer, “those lines of whatever.”

“Right!” Mike looks way too happy about what seems like a downside. “ _But_ , having a detailed accounting of what to search for — such as the exact dates, times, and amounts of 13 separate Litecoin purchases he made — allowed me to identify your guy’s very own ‘line of whatever.’” His grin goes smug when he lifts a hand to the computer. “His wallet.”

The importance of this slowly sinks into Andy’s head. “So you can see where that Litecoin went?”

“It was used to buy Liberium.”

 _That word, again_. Andy grimaces, lays it out as he sees it: “So Burchell used cash to buy Litecoin, to buy this Liberium stuff.”

“Yes.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”

Mike holds up a finger. “Liberium is unique in the current cryptocurrency landscape, in that it’s a closed system. It can only be purchased through a single exchange, called Stimula, which doesn’t accept cash, only other crypto-coins.”

“Okay, so where did the Liberium go, then?”

“ _That_ ,” Mike winces, “is tricky, almost impossible to say with certainty. Once Liberium is acquired via Stimula, its only official value is for use on a darknet market called Bacchanalibus.”

Andy shakes his head. “That’s a lot of words, Mike.”

He holds out his palm. “It isn’t a perfect analogy, but you can think of it like an arcade. The Litecoin exchange is like buying game tickets with cash. The games themselves are like Stimula: insert tickets, earn tokens—”

“Then the tokens are this Liberium stuff,” Andy says.

“Right. And Bacchanalibus is the tchotchke stand: the only place where the tokens are worth anything.”

“And I’m guessing no one is using Liberium for rabbits’ feet and stuffed animals.”

“No, I doubt it.” Mike shrugs. “But I can’t prove it, either. Liberium, being in a closed system, has no public ledger. I’m still not clear on the mechanism it uses to verify transactions, but they’re not visible to us, regardless.”

“So we’re blind,” Andy says. “Sounds like a perfect recipe for money laundering.”

“Oh, it is, even moreso than the run-of-the-mill cryptocurrencies.” With his expression darkening, Mike turns his attention to the laptop. “But it’s worse than that.” He angles the screen further toward Andy. On it, a too-familiar logo points to deeper trouble. “The FBI issued a bulletin earlier this year, advising that Bacchanalibus and Liberium have shown up in a pile of their investigations, ranging from biological weapons precursors to child trafficking.”

Heat rises in Andy’s chest. “So why would a DA be using a site like this?”

“ _That_ , I don’t know.” Reclaiming the laptop, Mike goes thoughtful. “There are people who argue that the darknet represents the internet’s original, uncorrupted autonomy — freedom from censorship, freedom from oversight. The potential for criminal markets on a platform like Bacchanalibus, in that mindset, is nothing more than a side effect.” He rolls his hand in mid-air. “On the _other_ hand, ever since the giant darknet markets like Silk Road began falling, developers have stepped up, over and over again, to fill the void. Their motives are at least as much about money as principles. The goal, for all of them, is a truly untraceable, bulletproof replacement for the sites the DOJ has broken and seized.” He points to the bulletin. “I hate to say, this might be it.”

Nothing Andy knows of Burchell says he was some digital rights crusader. But nothing says he was a black market customer, either. Either way, right now the _why_ isn’t important. “So the Liberium thing is a dead end?”

“Of sorts, yes.” But with a wagging point, Mike adds, “I _did_ get additional insight on those final, larger transactions, though.”

“Yeah?”

“They were overseas transfers—” Mike freezes as the door opens.

Julio pops his head into the gap. “Doctor Morales is here with a big stack of photos.” His eyes sweep the table, but he makes no comment on the meeting.

“That’s never a good sign,” Andy sighs. “Alright, we’ll be there in a minute.”

He leaves with a nod, pulling the door closed behind him. Mike closes his laptop, stands. “Anyway, Burchell sent what was left of his money to an account with StallBank in Cyprus.”

“Cyprus,” Andy mutters, following Mike into the hall. It’s an old-fashioned money hiding strategy, as compared to the crypto-nonsense. Still sketchy, though. Turning it all over — as much as he understands of it, anyway — he asks, “Did Burchell buy any other cryptocurrency, before Liberium?”

“Other than the Litecoin, no, not that I could see. The other purchases were mundane. Gas, groceries, clothes, et cetera.”

Andy nods. To say he has more information than before would be a ridiculous understatement. “And how long did it take you, tying all this together?”

Mike shrugs. “Hour, hour and a half.” On a grin, he admits, “Once I got into it, I spent a good stretch of that time reading up on Liberium. It’s as fascinating as it is nefarious.”

As they stroll back into the Murder Room, now full for the day, Andy bites off his sharpest question: _What are the chances that San Diego PD, with all its resources, never knew the facts Mike Tao put together in a single night?_

No, that one’s better kept locked down. Instead, sparing a glance toward Morales setting up at the board, he says, “I owe you at least one lunch, Mike.”

“If it’s what you think it is,” he replies quietly, “I’m happy to help.”

From the front of the room, a throat grunts clear. Provenza leans onto his desk. “What are the two of you whispering about?”

“Nothing.” Andy answers before Mike and his inability to tell a convincing lie get a chance. “I just had a tech question.”

Provenza’s stare narrows. He’ll have to know, eventually, what’s going on. For now, though, his attention slides to the hall, where Williams has appeared, far ahead of his usual schedule. “Ah, Captain,” he says, lifting a hand toward the board, “Doctor Morales has a set of deaths he’d like us to consider.”

Williams, scowling, mutters something about Mason. But he stops moving, leans back against the desk next to Buzz’s. “Consider how?”

“As a referral for investigation.” Morales cuts to the point, with his typical lack of small talk. He lifts an arm to the five photos he’s stuck to the surface. “This is the squad for serial murders, yes?”

At the Captain’s dry laugh of an answer, Provenza motions for the Doc to kick off his presentation.

“Since February, the bodies of five young men — teenagers, really — have been found hanged in LA. All were located in areas with minimal foot traffic, none were on public lands.” He gestures to the board. “I conducted four of the exams myself, our contracted forensic anthropologist,” he touches a photo showing a scattering of bones, “completed the fifth.”

Amy, wearing a deep frown, asks, “Is this the order they were found in?”

“Yes.” Morales points from the skeleton towards the others. “Working backward, they were discovered in Northridge last week, Mid-City at the beginning of the month, just over here,” he points out the window, “at a maintenance lot where the 5 and 10 converge, in early May, North Hollywood in April, and, again, close to downtown near Vista Hermosa park in February.” He sighs. “But, as far as I can tell, this boy,” he taps at the bones photo again, “was the first to die.”

With the exception of the Northridge body, all of the boys are shown laying on a metal slab in the morgue. Freeway is definitely worst for wear — mottled with purple and bloated — but they all look similar, otherwise. Average height, average build. White. Hair ranging from reddish-blond to brown. Late teens, like Morales said.

Recognition twinges at Andy’s gut. “Do you have ID on any of them?”

“None. Obviously with Northridge there were no prints and the freeway body was too degraded to capture any, but we ran the others without luck.” He frowns, turns around to flip through a folder he brought. “I thought it was interesting… Mid-City, Vista Hermosa, and Freeway all had belongings nearby, including phones, which were burners. All but Northridge had decent amounts of cash, hidden close to their bodies.”

“Mm, homeless, probably,” Provenza grunts. “Gonna make it hard to put names to the faces.” He angles his head, “Or what’s _left_ of the faces.”

“Well, Lieutenant,” the Captain knots his arms across his chest, “I don’t see the need for us to put names to faces of suicide victims, anyway.”

“These weren’t suicides.” Morales delivers this with respectable, cool confidence.

“How do you know?” The counter from Williams is swift. “Doesn’t look like any murder I’ve seen.”

“Oh, I’ve arrested at least a handful of killers for stringing up their victims,” Provenza says.

Wes nods. “It’s popular for the organized crime groups.”

“And forensically,” Mike adds, “killers seem to like the method for its ambiguity. But homicide versus suicide determinations are possible in almost every case.”

The ambiguity factor is what gets Andy. It’s too damned familiar, like the ghost he’s been chasing through Dana Point. This time, in this circumstance, they’re lucky to have a pathologist as eagle-eyed as Morales.

He’s plenty thorough, too. “I agree, hanging murders aren’t exactly rare. But that alone isn’t why I’ve classified these as homicides.” He reaches out, runs his finger over the photo of the Vista Hermosa victim. “First, I found adhesive residue across the lips and cheeks of the intact bodies.” Pointing to a picture of discolored arms below that, he says, “Each of these four also had ligature markings at the wrists and ankles, though no bindings were found at the scenes.” He turns from the board. “Northridge, Freeway, and Vista Hermosa also showed skull fractures consistent with blunt force trauma.” Morales shakes his head, “And the worst part—”

“Oh God.” Buzz winces. “There’s _more_?”

“There is.” Morales unclips Mid-City’s photo. “See the extensive bruising and chafing here on the neck?” After a pause, he explains, “It indicates movement and variation of force, many times over. Each of the four intact bodies show signs of it, and Dr. Culbert found equivalent injuries to Northridge.”

Andy approaches the Doctor for a closer view. “So you’re saying these weren’t single-drop hangings. Someone tortured these kids.”

Williams scoffs. “That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?”

“ _I_ don’t think it’s melodramatic at all,” Morales answers. “Hanging from overhead, it could take a person upwards of a half hour to fully asphyxiate. To go through the initial stages of it, again and again and again, dropping in and out of consciousness—” he shudders. After a moment spent returning Mid-City to the board, he says, “It had to have been an awful way to go, for each of them.”

The observation plunges the office into a dark silence. He’s not wrong, and they all know it. Whoever’s behind these deaths, it has to be a sadistic bastard.

Williams breaks the quiet. “Okay, but still.” He scans the board, shakes his head. “I don’t get it.”

Morales frowns. “I’m sorry, what is there not to get?”

“These guys,” the Captain lifts his mug toward the crime scene photos. “They were living high-risk lives, doing God-knows-what to stay fed.” He shrugs. “I mean, street kids die in this city every day.”

Andy’s chest tightens. He turns his back to the Captain. Of course he’d take the old No Humans Involved angle. Of course he’s gonna push back. It’s an investigation that should be handled by this squad, no question, and he can’t just _take it_.

“I’d argue on the ‘every day’ timeline.” Morales crosses his arms. “It _is_ common, too common, but these boys didn’t die on their own.”

“So _we’re_ supposed to open a case…why?” Williams lets the question fill the room before he adds, “Because they were friends of yours?”

Morales’ jaw drops. He recovers with a snap. “They were not _friends_ of mine.” No doubt understanding there’s no arguing with the Captain, his face reddens as he turns to unclip his photos from the board. “I just figured maybe you’d want to—”

Provenza holds a calming hand in the Doctor’s direction, then looks to Williams. “If we _do_ have a string of murders happening here, Captain, they’re going to end up on our desks sooner or later.”

His answer comes on a smirk. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” He stands off the desk and addresses Morales again. “Thanks for the info, Doc, but we’re going to pass on this one.” Andy and Provenza trade a dark stare as Williams straightens his jacket, gets on with his day. “Detective Nolan, let’s chat about that project of yours.”

“Oh, uh,” Wes twists his chair toward the back office, wearing a light frown. “Sure thing, boss.” He stands, shrugs off the seven hard stares fixed on him.

After the door closes, Amy rests her head in her palms, staring at her desk. Mike tips his head toward the ceiling. Julio mutters, “What are we doing, then?”

Provenza holds up his hands. “Nothing is settled yet.”

This reassurance doesn’t slow Morales in packing up. Andy follows him out of the office while Provenza doles out distraction wrap-up work for the Zabala case. “Doctor, hang on a sec.”

In the hall, anger burns through his usual cool front. “I have _never_ had a division CO be that dismissive and, frankly, insulting in response to a referral.”

“I know. I’d apologize for him, but, honestly, he’s not worth the breath.” Andy nods toward his armload of files. “I think you have the right thought, here, though.”

This does nothing to blunt his anger. “Care to tell your boss?”

“He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about my opinion, trust me.” After letting that sink in, he says, “I want to read over what you’ve got so far, see if I can find any new details.”

Morales’ eyes narrow. He pulls the folders closer to his chest. “Well, I had these officially assigned to the medical examiner’s office for follow-up. I can’t just transfer them to you without your Captain’s sign-off.”

“Yeah,” Andy sighs. He’ll have to spell it out. No wink-and-nod agreements to be had, here. “What I’m _saying_ is that I’d like to see what you have, unofficially. And if there’s something there… then maybe I can go over the Captain’s head for a second opinion, or at least find another squad willing to take the case.”

Before Morales can answer, Provenza blusters around the corner. He slows to his normal pace when he sees the conversation in progress. “Oh, thank God.” He waggles his finger at the Doctor. “We need to take a closer look at what you’ve got, there.”

Andy rolls his eyes. “Already working on it, genius.”

For what it’s worth, having another body in the fight seems to drain some tension from Morales. “The two of you think you can convince your Captain to do the right thing?”

Provenza lets out a low laugh. “That’s a whole,” he pulls the word out long, “separate question, Doctor. I _do_ think we can help you with these boys, though.”

Morales stares at them for a moment, eyes flitting back and forth, before he sighs. “Fine. I need _someone_ to care enough to investigate, might as well be you guys.” He holds the files out, but goes stern before releasing them into Andy’s hands. “Do _not_ make me regret this.”

“We won’t.” Andy makes the promise somber. “And we’ll keep you posted when we find something.”

On a nod, the Doctor says, “Thank you.” He heads off toward the elevators, letting out a deep sigh as he goes.

Andy opens the top folder, feeling every ounce of the Doc’s reaction. It’s a heavy weight to bear. Somewhere, someone is missing these boys, and no one even knows who they are.

Provenza clears his throat. “So you saw something in those photos too, Flynn?”

“I just—” he shakes his head, holds up the morgue photo of the first victim. “I can’t help but notice these kids look more than a little like Rusty, back when we first found him.”

Provenza’s mouth tips into a sad smile. He claps Andy on the shoulder. “Already with the paternal instinct kicking in.”

“You don’t see it?”

“Oh, I _see_ it. That’s why I came out here.” He frowns toward the folders. “Why don’t you take three, four, and five, I’ll take one and two.”

“Really?” Andy huffs. “Leaving me with the extra _and_ the bones?”

“Well, you’re the one who started this, Flynn, not me.”

As he portions out the folders, he mutters, “Only because I beat you to it.”

“And now you can reap the rewards.” Provenza flips open file number two. After scanning its cover sheet, he rubs at his forehead. “This one has already been kicked between two divisions and four different detectives.”

“Yeah, I bet it’ll be the same story across the board.” With a hand extended toward the Murder Room, Andy adds, “We need to get them in here.”

The ‘why’ on that is clear.

The ‘how’ is gonna be a whole different ballgame.


	14. Black Wave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Sharon and Amy discuss new approaches to their work on Williams, Rusty confides in Andy.

As a homicide detective, weekends off the clock are special. Sacred, even. Andy can count on one hand the number of them he’s spent volunteering his time toward work when he could otherwise be watching baseball, or sleeping, or doing just about anything else.

 _This case though_ …

The mystery of the hanged boys has sunk into him like a hook. Late on Friday, early Saturday, mid-morning Sunday — every spare, solitary moment he’s had has gone into these three files. From the barebones scene diagrams and evidence logs to a pitiful stack of interview write-ups, it’s obvious that the original owning squads didn’t dig deep. Whether that’s more about straight apathy or the number of more promising cases they had standing by, the end result is the same: a string of what looks like serial killings, flown under the radar.

Northridge, in particular, gnaws at Andy. Photos from the scene show the skeleton boy’s belongings strewn around the base of a tree, probably dumped from the dust-caked backpack shown lying nearby. Small soaps and tubes of toothpaste scattered among clothes once neatly folded but left in creased heaps in the dirt. A few scraps of paper stuck from folds of cloth, others no doubt blew away in the early spring winds.

Just visible in all of it: the snaking tangle of a black charger cord. A cross-check of the evidence sheet confirms its presence. He’d probably had a phone, like the a few of the other boys.

On top of all the other shit this kid had dealt with, some asshole walked up to his body and robbed him, without bothering to give a heads-up on what they’d found. They just left him there to become a hidden pile of bones.

 _What a fucking world_.

“Yikes,” Rusty’s voice breaks through this dark conclusion. “Who’s that?”

These murders are the last thing he needs to see, right now. Or ever. Andy slides Northridge’s photos and papers back into their folder. “Don’t know yet.” Fishing for a quick distraction, he pulls up the most obvious. “Where’ve you been all weekend?”

“I mean, I’ve been _around_.” Rusty lifts a shoulder as he pours himself some coffee. “Mostly.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” At the invitation of the lifted carafe, Andy pushes his own mug across the counter. “Except all night Friday and all day yesterday.”

It isn’t that he _minds_ , exactly. He’ll never argue against having extra so-called quiet time in the condo with Sharon. It’s just outside the norm, especially since Gus bit the dust.

“It wasn’t _all night_ ,” Rusty argues, leaning back against the stove. “Andrea has me working with this guy from Stanford, Blake, to get, like, a hundred motions ready for filing next week.” The turn of his lips says something about all this weekend work doesn’t have him bothered. “He’s new, I’m helping him figure it all out.”

Andy can’t resist poking at the issue, just a little. “ _Blake_ , huh?”

“Oh my _God_.” Rusty’s head drops backward with a disgusted sigh. “It’s not like that.”

“No?”

“You know,” he heaves himself back upright before flicking his hand toward the counter, “you don’t have to get all _weird_ now that you’re official.”

His point leaves Andy chuckling, even if the 'official’ part isn’t quite accurate. True, they got the forms submitted. And, by all accounts, the adoption process will go a lot quicker than when Sharon went through it — marriage to a legal parent speeds the whole thing up. But a long list of reviews and sign-offs need to happen before it’s a done deal.

Regardless of all that, though, the idea at the center of Rusty’s complaint stands firm.

“Are you kidding? Being ‘weird’ is a huge part of the fatherhood game.” Andy lifts his mug in a toast. “And I have a lot of ground to make up.”

“You really don’t.”

“Sure I do. Just give me a heads-up when you’re bringing him over for dinner. We might not have an embarrassing baby photo album for you, but I can work with what I’ve got.”

“There is _zero_ chance of that happening.”

“C’mon, you know how much your mom hates surprises…”

“Well, she won’t have to worry about being surprised, because he won’t be coming over here, because we’re just fri— well, not even friends, really. Co-workers. That’s all.” The way Rusty’s cheeks redden at this denial is nothing but a dead giveaway.

But Andy’s figured out, over these last few years, that prying the kid open is all about balance. One toe too far in the wrong direction could send a conversation slamming to the ground like the heavy side of a half-abandoned teeter totter. With that in mind, he lets the Blake thing go with a nod. “Okay.”

Rusty takes a long draw from his mug. His eyes sweep the living room. “Speaking of Mom, where is she?”

“Getting coffee with Sykes.”

The specifics of that meeting, as usual with matters of Williams and his shady past, were in short supply before Sharon left. But something has flipped in her since the night the Captain held Amy back in the office. She’s back on the trail and, based on what she said about her trip to West Covina, she’s got some leads.

A too-casual “Huh,” from Rusty reroutes Andy’s attention. It’s a timeless, ham-handed shift into a forced conversation, a segue he’s used too many times himself for it to pass unnoticed.

He leans away from the counter, crossing his arms as he does. “Spill it.”

Rusty’s face creases into an offended frown. “What?”

“You can waste time pretending you don’t have anything to talk about — keeping in mind she’s been gone more than an hour already and could be back any minute — or you can just say it while you’ve got the chance and get it over with.”

The kid’s mouth moves in what’s probably going to be an argument, but he stops, sighs. After a long moment staring at the ceiling, he says, “Okay, so, if I tell _you_ something that’s been happening with me, it’s covered, right?”

The question’s tone is pitch black compared to anything having to do with Blake the Supposedly Clueless Stanford Intern. Ignoring the increase in his pulse, Andy squints at him. “Covered?”

“Yeah, like, it’s dealt with.” He gestures across the counter. “I’ve run it past a responsible party.”

The thought of being considered a ‘responsible party’ nearly sends Andy laughing. But the lingering image of the Northridge body, forgotten bones and a pile of looted belongings, the mystery of how he got that way, keeps him somber. That could’ve been Rusty, in another life, and Andy won’t see it become a reality in this one. “Uh, sure.” He lifts his chin. “But why wouldn’t you tell Sharon?”

“Because,” Rusty sighs, “I don’t really think it’s anything dangerous, but I’m pretty sure she’d get all worried.” He tips his mug toward the door. “And I feel like things are just finally getting back to normal. I wouldn’t want to be the one who knocks it all down again.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“I mean… yeah. But sometimes it feels that way.” He holds Andy’s stare for a moment before asking, “So?”

“What, exactly, are you looking for, here?” A dry laugh chuffs from his throat. “An alibi? Because I’m not sure I wanna go there.”

“No, no.” Rusty’s face twists into a question. “A second perspective, I guess?” He lifts his hand. “If it’s something you think Mom _needs_ to know, then fine. But otherwise, I was thinking it could stay between us?”

Andy rubs at his chin. The kid has a point, as far as things getting back to normal. And the three of them _did_ all agree on this new parental authority thing.

Plus, honestly, Sharon has been known to go all Mama Bear at the first sniff of trouble. Not that it isn’t ever justified, but it’s a role that comes a little too naturally…

“Alright,” Andy says. “Deal.”

“Okay. So…” Rusty draws a deep breath, then releases his secret on the exhale. “Simon Pitkin has been following me around.”

“What?” The name, vaguely familiar, pairs with Burchell in Andy’s memory. “He’s the journalist, right?”

“Yeah, the one who said I’d be an interesting subject.” He waves that off. “Anyway, Amy and Cooper taught me all sorts of counter-surveillance stuff back when the whole Wade Weller thing was going on. A lot of it has stuck with me.”

“So that’s how you noticed what he was up to?”

“Really, it wasn’t even hard,” Rusty scoffs. “He isn’t stealthy at all. I figure he doesn’t know that _I_ know what he looks like.”

Andy flattens a grin at the kid’s endless supply of confidence. “Sure, or maybe he’s waiting for you to get in his face, so he can write about it and make you out to be the bad guy.” He drums his fingers on the countertop, lining up the facts. “Has he tried contacting you any other way?”

“He called twice after we talked that one time.” Rusty shrugs. “I blocked his number.”

“Probably a good idea. Has he actually approached you at all?”

“No, he’s been staying back, just trailing me.” As Andy tries to measure the truth in his words, Rusty’s eyes widen. “That’s all, I swear.”

“Huh.” Andy lifts his coffee to his mouth, spends a sip running through the situation. It’s not earth-shattering stuff. Pitkin, as a shady journalist, could be doing any number of things, none of which seem menacing. He’s probably trying to sniff out a story.

Without an overt threat to guide his reaction, Andy has two choices. The first involves pulling a certain someone into the circle of trust he and Rusty just drew and letting her decide how to handle it. The second means taking the route of less resistance now, with the understanding it could backfire all to hell later.

“Okay,” with his mug back on the counter, Andy straightens his posture into his best effort toward seriousness. “At the end of the day, you’re an adult. So the outcome is up to you.”

Rusty gives him a solid nod. “That’s how I want it to be.”

“Good. So I trust you to know if and when you need help to deal with Pitkin.” Andy shrugs. “If you do, you can call me, whenever and wherever, and we’ll figure out what comes next. Make sense?”

 _It_ ’ _s a reasonable take, right?_ He heard Rusty’s view of what’s going on, agreed it’s not the end of the world. Sure, a hint of unease settles in him at the idea of not telling Sharon. But the choice isn’t wrong. It’s his chance to help out, to share the weight of responsibility. Sharon doesn’t need to carry it all.

The kid answers with a relieved sigh. “Yeah, it does.”

Andy crooks a grin. “That was basically painless, right?”

“Sure.” The response comes on a flat tone, but Rusty’s eyes crinkle with it. He heads out of the kitchen. “I need to get back to the office.”

“You have plans with Blake?”

A pained groan echoes down the hall before his door clicks shut. Shaking his head, Andy pulls the papers on Northridge from their folder. The holes in the evidence kick off a dull ache at his temples.

 _There_ ’ _s gotta be something here to point toward who you are._

-_-_-_-_-_-_

In the sun-filled hallway of a modern, Bunker Hill apartment building, Sharon scans doorways until she finds one marked 407. She shifts a drink carrier into her left hand before knocking. Inside, the contact sets off a reaction. A quick set of soft thumps accompany a muffled call of, “Just a second!”

The sounds leave her flattening a grin and considering whether 10AM was too early to plan this particular meeting. But only a few seconds pass before the thumps draw closer and a lock clicks free.

Amy peeks around the door as she pulls it open. “Morning, Commander. Come on in.”

Sharon swallows what must be her hundredth request that the younger woman drop her former rank. It’s a sign of respect, she knows, though she’d prefer to stand on an uncomplicated, level footing with Amy these days. Instead, she lets a wry grin and a knowing look substitute for the correction as she steps inside.

Pale wood flooring stretches from the entry and straight into a combined living/kitchen space, with wide windows and a sliding door leading to a narrow balcony. Pale green paint and blizzard-like stone countertops contrast with several vibrant abstract paintings on the walls, planters brimming with greenery, a sea-like area rug.

“Your apartment is lovely, Amy.”

“Oh, thank you.” She gestures toward a line of boxes stacked along a short hallway. “I’m still trying to get settled in, but the smaller footprint is growing on me.”

“I didn’t realize you moved.”

“Same building, different unit. I figured I should probably downsize to a one-bed.” Amy swallows sharply before she adds, “I mean, since Chuck and I decided to go our separate ways.”

Though she’d guessed at this change through various comments and awkward silences, the confirmation weighs on Sharon’s chest. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be.” Her unbothered tone doesn’t quite reach her eyes, even as she shrugs. “It’s probably a good thing we sorted it out now, instead of waiting until we’re any more tangled up together.” The words send her gaze across the room. “We had _very_ different ideas of what we wanted out of life, as it turns out.”

“I can tell you, it’s much better to figure that out early.” Sharon softens the point with a squeeze of Amy’s shoulder. “But that doesn’t make it any easier in the moment.”

“Yeah.”

Though it won’t come close to healing this particular hurt, Sharon offers her one of the two large coffee cups from the holder she carries. “I seem to remember you enjoying the occasional nonfat hazelnut latte, yes?”

“Yes. Definitely, thank you.”

Before handing the cup over, she says, “Full disclosure: this is actually Nutella, not just hazelnut.”

A smile cracks through Amy’s expression. “Even better, in my book.”

“Good.” Sharon passes the coffee and a paper sack carrying pastries. “I figured bringing refreshments was the least I could do, since you offered up your home for us to meet.”

“You didn’t have to, but thanks.” Amy peers into the bag. “Anyway, I wouldn’t want you to displace Rusty and the Lieutenant on my account.”

The comment leaves Sharon exhaling a laugh into her own coffee. “Those two are generally immovable before noon on the weekends. There’s nothing either of us can do, on that front.”

“No doubt.” She points toward a small table beside the patio door. “Go ahead and grab a seat, I’ll get us a couple plates.”

As Sharon settles into a sapphire-hued chair, Amy launches into their reason for meeting: she’s made a sharp decision in developing a source. “Alyssa was an evidence clerk at Rampart back when I was on patrol. She moved over to work for the Police Foundation after she had her daughter. So now, as a fundraiser, she knows a lot of former cops.”

“That’s how she was able to recognize Pamela Doulin’s name?”

Sharon received an email from Denise on Friday morning, explaining that Doulin was the Baker to Vegas teammate with a Williams experience. Amy checked the LAPD directory and quickly determined Doulin is no longer on the department’s rolls, but her former coworker with the Los Angeles Police Foundation was apparently able to add context to the name.

“Yeah, and Doulin made a particular impression with her.” Amy sinks into the chair opposite Sharon. “Alyssa said that even though Doulin is a consistent and generous donor, she has a… _reputation_ at the Foundation. She became hostile at invitations to fundraising events or volunteer rallies, yelled at them to stop mailing cards to her and, eventually, demanded they quit calling. Still, she donates every year, like clockwork.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want the attention.” After Amy pulls a danish from the bag, Sharon slides the second onto her own plate. She picks at the pastry, thinking through the approach from Doulin’s position. “Or maybe her reasons for giving are complicated.”

“I think it’s the latter.” Spurred on by a questioning look, Amy explains, “Alyssa used to make donor calls herself, when she first started. She spoke with Doulin several times, which is how she found out a friend of hers was killed in the line—”

“A friend of Doulin’s?”

“Yes. And that was back in the 90s. The Foundation helped his family through the aftermath, so it seems she feels an obligation to help out. But her feelings about the LAPD are, well,” she nods into a euphemism, “ _less rosy_ , to say the least.”

This is consistent with what Sharon knows and has guessed of her history. From Brad’s list, Doulin is likely one of the two veteran officers who were punished with transfers when Neil Williams should have been held to account instead. “If Williams harassed her and she was forced to change divisions as a result, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Amy’s long nod hints at a longer story. “I think that’s where her grievances _started_.”

“I see,” Sharon sighs. If they can’t appeal to some sense of concern or duty toward the LAPD, Doulin might well turn out to be another dead end. And an unpleasant one, at that. “Are you sure you’re up to making this call?”

“Yes. Definitely. I want to help out as much as I can.” With a pausing finger lifted, Amy scoots back from the table. “But before we get to that…” 

She glances around the room before standing up and heading down the hallway. When she returns, it’s with a large picture in hand. “I kept catching glimpses of this, in the Captain’s office. He has a framed copy sitting back in the corner of his trophy shelf.” Handing the sheet over to Sharon, she adds, “I finally got close enough to read the caption, so I could look it up for myself.”

The photo is a posed shot of about 20 uniformed officers, lined up on risers. Before them, Neil Williams exchanges a handshake and a certificate with then-Assistant Chief William Pope. A stretch of block text across the top of the page puts the display in perspective. “‘2009 Platinum Patrol Division, Harbor P-2,’” Sharon reads. “This is one of his old squads.”

“Yeah, and there’s a familiar name involved.” Amy points toward a figure at the edge of the front row.

Reading through the first line of accompanying names, Sharon’s brow quirks when she reaches the sergeants. “Angela Masuki.”

Amy settles back into her seat. “If Masuki had some kind of experience with the Captain that she won’t talk about, I wonder if any of the other women listed here have anything to add.”

Their names jump out at Sharon, now. Pomona Valdez. Amanda Sullivan. Sienna Jones. Samantha Basilone. Loretta Edwards. Laurel Sterling.

 _Laurel Sterling_.

The corresponding face, tucked into the back row of officers, sends a flare of recognition through her. Sterling was a fresh new detective in PSB a few months ago, the one so eager to meet her 72-hour deadline when Sharon met Brad for breakfast. How interesting it is to find out she worked for Neil Williams, at one time.

She worked for Angela Masuki, too. She might even still speak to her…

A certain path of information stitches itself together. Brad heard from Laurel, who heard from Angela, that Sharon was asking about Williams. That’s why he was so in-the-loop at their dinner.

 _Doesn_ ’ _t explain why he was so opposed to me tracking down the accusers, though._

For now, she pushes that lingering annoyance away. “I’d say you’re doing more than ‘helping out,’ Amy. You’re leading the charge.”

“Nah, I’m just covering the side streets off the main route.”

As she scans the faces before her once more, Sharon dips her toe into the delicate topic hovering over the conversation. “Does this expanded strategy have anything to do with the Captain trying to keep you alone in the Murder Room last week?”

Amy’s quiet response comes only after a long stretch of silence. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the Lieutenant told you.”

“He has his moments of going over the top with his protectiveness,” Sharon rolls her eyes as she slides the photo across the table. “ _Believe me_ , I understand it all too well. But Andy is genuine in his concern. He won’t stand by if he thinks you’re being threatened.”

Amy shakes her head. “I guess that night made all of this feel real to me.” With a long breath cycling through her lungs, she looks onto the patio. “I know it’s wrong, I still had this hope inside, a small hope, that someone in the Captain’s position _couldn_ ’ _t_ have done all the things he’s been accused of.” Her jaw goes tight. “No matter how many problems I have with him. No matter how much want to believe these women.”

The weight of her words settle onto Sharon. “I don’t blame you.”

Amy’s face twists into surprised confusion as she turns back to the table. “You don’t?”

“Of course not!” She reaches to the photo again, leaning forward as she explains, “The alternative, Amy, the problem that we’re staring at, is that all of the oversights, all the protections built into LAPD policy…” The enormity of it rolls over her like a cold, dissonant wave. Sharon delivered countless defenses of the IA process to antagonistic officers through the years. None of those assurances stand up, now.

It leaves her feeling like a fraud, in retrospect.

With anger pulsing through her veins, Sharon presses her palm to the table. “These steps not only failed to stop Williams, they allowed him to flourish. It is a _massive_ failure of the system.” Pushing back, her lip curls into a grimace. “And we have no way of knowing how many others like him exist in the ranks. But I’d like to find out.”

They sit with that conclusion for a moment, coffees and danishes forgotten.

“I think I’d like that, too. But, for now, how do we move on with the Captain?” Amy lifts her phone. “Should we still try calling Pam Doulin?”

This _was_ the purpose of their getting together. But it no longer stands as the best option.

“Actually, no. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Leaning into her chair, Sharon crosses her arms. “I’m thinking we should consider her a source of last resort, given what Alyssa told you about her hostility.” It’s no use burning Doulin on the topic of Williams, when they may need her to provide context later, when they’re further along. “Besides, from the timeline Brad gave me, her complaint went through IA and was resolved with her transfer, it _wasn’t_ retracted.”

Amy’s brows crease. “And that’s what I don’t understand. The retractions.”

“I agree. Let’s focus on someone who might be able to explain.” Sharon nods toward the photo. “Masuki said she doesn’t want to be involved, and I happen to know Laurel Sterling is currently assigned to PSB.” She shakes off Amy’s questioning look. “Setting them aside, I wonder whether any of the five other women here have left the LAPD prematurely.”

“You’re thinking Williams may have driven them out?”

“Maybe.” A fresh push of annoyance surges through Sharon. “Or maybe the Department’s reaction to their accusations did that _for_ him.”


End file.
